CRISPR-DT: designing gRNAs for the CRISPR-Cpf1 system with improved target efficiency and specificity

Abstract

The CRISPR-Cpf1 system has been successfully applied in genome editing. However, target efficiency of the CRISPR-Cpf1 system varies among different gRNA sequences. We reanalyzed the published CRISPR-Cpf1 gRNAs data and found many sequence and structural features related to their target efficiency. Using machine learning technology, a SVM model was created to predict target efficiency for any given gRNAs. We have developed the first web service application, CRISPR-DT (CRISPR DNA Targeting), to help users design optimal gRNAs for the CRISPR-Cpf1 system by considering both target efficiency and specificity. CRISPR-DT is available at http://bioinfolab.miamioh.edu/CRISPR-DT.