Targeted genome editing technologies have enabled a broad range of research and medical applications. The Cas9 nuclease from the microbial CRISPR-Cas system is targeted to specific genomic loci by a 20-nt guide sequence, which can tolerate certain mismatches to the DNA target and thereby promote undesired off-target mutagenesis. Here, we describe an approach that combines a Cas9 nickase mutant with pairs of guide RNAs to introduce targeted double-strand breaks. Given that individual nicks in the genome are repaired with high fidelity, simultaneous nicking via appropriately offset guide RNAs effectively extends the number of specifically recognized bases in the target site. We demonstrate that paired nicking can be used to reduce off-target activity by 50–1,000 fold in cell lines and facilitate gene knockout in mouse zygotes without sacrificing on-target cleavage efficiency. This versatile strategy thus enables a wide variety of genome editing applications with higher levels of specificity.

Systematic interrogation of gene function requires the ability to perturb gene expression in a robust and generalizable manner. We describe structure-guided engineering of a CRISPR-Cas9 complex to mediate efficient transcriptional activation at endogenous genomic loci. We use these engineered Cas9 activation complexes to investigate sgRNA targeting rules for effective transcriptional activation, demonstrate multiplexed activation of 10 genes simultaneously, and upregulate long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) transcripts. We also synthesize a library consisting of 70,290 guides targeting all human RefSeq coding isoforms to screen for genes which, upon activation, confer resistance to a BRAF inhibitor. Expected and potentially novel resistance genes are enriched in the top hits and are validated using individual sgRNA as well as cDNA overexpression. The signature of our top screening hits is significantly correlated with gene expression data from clinical melanoma samples. These results collectively demonstrate the potential of Cas9-based activators as a powerful genetic perturbation technology.