OptoCRISPRi-HD: engineering a green-light activated CRISPRi system with high dynamic range

The ability to modulate gene expression is crucial for studying gene function and programming cell behaviors. Combining the reliability of CRISPRi and the precision of optogenetics, the opto-CRISPRi technique is emerging as an advanced tool for live-cell gene regulation. Since previous versions of opto-CRISPRi often exhibit a no more than 10 folds dynamic range due to the leakage activity, they are not suitable for targets that are sensitive to such leakage or critical for cell growth. Here, we describe a green-light activated CRISPRi system with high dynamic range (40-fold) and the flexibility of changing targets in Escherichia coli. Our optoCRISPRi-HD system can efficiently repress essential genes, non-essential genes or inhibit the initiation of DNA replication. Providing a regulative system with high resolution over space-time and extensive targets, our study would facilitate further researches involving complex gene networks, metabolic flux redirection or bioprinting.