Targeted mutagenesis in mouse cells and embryos using an enhanced prime editor

Abstract

Prime editors, novel genome-editing tools consisting of a CRISPR-Cas9 nickase and an engineered reverse transcriptase, can induce targeted mutagenesis. Nevertheless, much effort is required to optimize and improve the efficiency of prime-editing. Herein, we introduce two strategies to improve the editing efficiency using proximal dead sgRNA and chromatin-modulating peptides. We used enhanced prime-editing to generate Igf2 mutant mice with editing frequencies of up to 47% and observed germline transmission, no off-target effects, and a dwarf phenotype. This improved prime-editing method can be efficiently applied to cell research and to generate mouse models.