UC Berkeley

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has been employed to efficiently edit the genomes of diverse model organisms. CRISPR-mediated mouse genome editing is typically accomplished by microinjection of Cas9 DNA/RNA and single guide RNA (sgRNA) into zygotes to generate modified animals in one step. However, microinjection is a technically demanding, labor-intensive, and costly procedure with poor embryo viability. Here, we describe a simple and economic electroporation-based strategy to deliver Cas9/sgRNA ribonucleoproteins into mouse zygotes with 100% efficiency for in vivo genome editing. Our methodology, designated as CRISPR RNP Electroporation of Zygotes (CRISPR-EZ), enables highly efficient and high-throughput genome editing in vivo, with a significant improvement in embryo viability compared with microinjection. Using CRISPR-EZ, we generated a variety of editing schemes in mouse embryos, including indel (insertion/deletion) mutations, point mutations, large deletions, and small insertions. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we used CRISPR-EZ to target the tyrosinase (Tyr) gene, achieving 88% bi-allelic editing and 42% homology-directed repair-mediated precise sequence modification in live mice. Taken together, CRISPR-EZ is simple, economic, high throughput, and highly efficient with the potential to replace microinjection for in vivo genome editing in mice and possibly in other mammals.