CRISPRi-assisted E. coli strains increase success rate of burdensome construct cloning

Abstract

Genetic constructs meant for metabolic engineering in nonmodel microbes often use similar genetic parts to those familiar to E. coli work. The typical workflow is to clone these parts into plasmids in E. coli before they are transferred to the nonmodel host or its genome. In many cases, the metabolic burden of these constructs is stronger in the E. coli cloning phase of the workflow than in the eventual host, possibly resulting in mutation or other failure during cloning. Here, we apply generic knockdown of a range of popular expression systems, using CRISPR interference, by targeting guide RNAs to either promoters or RBSs that are commonly used in metabolic engineering. Generic targeting of a constitutive promoter series, combined with genome integration of CRISPR components, allows the use of only one or a few specific cloning strains to achieve strong knockdown of a wide range of constructs. Further, we present a recombinase-based workflow for easily adding guide RNAs with custom targets, so that users can knock down any desired promoter or ORF. Together, this group of strains comprises easy-to-use cloning strains meant for increasing success rates of difficult or burdensome cloning reactions, ultimately allowing more ambitious genetic constructs to reach their intended context.