A kinetic approach for mapping seed regions of CRISPR ribonucleoprotein and improving specificity

The binding of an activator (target nucleic acid) to a crRNA-Cas ribonucleoprotein (RNP) in CRISPR systems is critical to the activation, kinetics, and specificity of the CRISPR technology. Key to this activation process is the interaction between the protospacer region of the activator and the spacer region of the crRNA in the RNP complex. However, how the nucleotides in the spacer region of the crRNA contribute to the kinetics of RNP binding is not well characterized. We report here profiling of the kinetically critical regions in the process of RNP binding to activators (RNA targets). We introduced the concept and strategy of kinetic manipulators, which enabled mapping of the seed regions (6-9 nucleotides within the spacer that is sensitive to mismatches) of the CRISPR-Cas13a system, including the LbuCas13a and LwaCas13a homologs. The characterization of the binding kinetics and the introduction of kinetic manipulators provided the foundation for a new kinetic approach to improve the specificity of CRISPR techniques without sacrificing the activity. Profiling the kinetically critical regions in the CRISPR system and designing corresponding manipulators maximized the kinetic differences, between the on-target and off-target, and increased discrimination of single-nucleotide mismatches.