A scalable CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system facilitates CRISPR screens in the malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei

Many Plasmodium genes remain uncharacterised due to low genetic tractability. Previous large scale knockout screens have only been able to target about half of the genome in the more genetically tractable rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a scalable CRISPR system called PbHiT, which uses a single cloning step to generate targeting vectors with 100 bp homology arms physically linked to a guide RNA (gRNA) that effectively integrate into the target locus. We show that PbHiT coupled with gRNA sequencing robustly recapitulates known knockout mutant phenotypes in pooled transfections. Furthermore, we provide vector designs and sequences to target the entire P. berghei genome and scale-up vector production using a pooled ligation approach. This work presents for the first time a tool for high-throughput CRISPR screens in Plasmodium for studying the parasites biology at scale.