Decades of work have aimed to genetically reprogram T cells for therapeutic purposes using recombinant viral vectors, which do not target transgenes to specific genomic sites. The need for viral vectors has slowed down research and clinical use as their manufacturing and testing is lengthy and expensive. Genome editing brought the promise of specific and efficient insertion of large transgenes into target cells using homology-directed repair. Here we developed a CRISPR-Cas9 genome-targeting system that does not require viral vectors, allowing rapid and efficient insertion of large DNA sequences (greater than one kilobase) at specific sites in the genomes of primary human T cells, while preserving cell viability and function. This permits individual or multiplexed modification of endogenous genes. First, we applied this strategy to correct a pathogenic IL2RA mutation in cells from patients with monogenic autoimmune disease, and demonstrate improved signalling function. Second, we replaced the endogenous T cell receptor (TCR) locus with a new TCR that redirected T cells to a cancer antigen. The resulting TCR-engineered T cells specifically recognized tumour antigens and mounted productive anti-tumour cell responses in vitro and in vivo. Together, these studies provide preclinical evidence that non-viral genome targeting can enable rapid and flexible experimental manipulation and therapeutic engineering of primary human immune cells.

Ribosome profiling has revealed pervasive but largely uncharacterized translation outside of canonical coding sequences (CDSs). In this work, we exploit a systematic CRISPR-based screening strategy to identify hundreds of noncanonical CDSs that are essential for cellular growth and whose disruption elicits specific, robust transcriptomic and phenotypic changes in human cells. Functional characterization of the encoded microproteins reveals distinct cellular localizations, specific protein binding partners, and hundreds of microproteins that are presented by the human leukocyte antigen system. We find multiple microproteins encoded in upstream open reading frames, which form stable complexes with the main, canonical protein encoded on the same messenger RNA, thereby revealing the use of functional bicistronic operons in mammals. Together, our results point to a family of functional human microproteins that play critical and diverse cellular roles.

High-conductance voltage-and Ca 2+ -activated K + (BK) channels encode negative feedback regulation of membrane voltage and Ca 2+ signaling, playing a central role in numerous physiological processes. We determined the x-ray structure of the human BK Ca 2+ gating apparatus at a resolution of 3.0 angstroms and deduced its tetrameric assembly by solving a 6-angstrom resolution structure of a Na + -activated homolog. Two tandem C-terminal regulator of K + conductance (RCK) domains from each of four channel subunits form a 350-kilodalton gating ring at the intracellular membrane surface. A sequence of aspartic amino acids that is known as the Ca 2+ bowl, and is located within the second of the tandem RCK domains, creates four Ca 2+ binding sites on the outer perimeter of the gating ring at the "assembly interface" between RCK domains. Functionally important mutations cluster near the Ca 2+ bowl, near the "flexible interface" between RCK domains, and on the surface of the gating ring that faces the voltage sensors. The structure suggests that the Ca 2+ gating ring, in addition to regulating the pore directly, may also modulate the voltage sensor.High-conductance voltage-and calcium-activated K + channels (BK or Slo1 channels) participate in numerous physiological processes, including neuronal excitability, smooth muscle contractility, and hair cell tuning (1-6). BK channels have an unusually high singlechannel conductance, but their most important physiological property is dual regulation through membrane voltage and intracellular Ca 2+ (7)(8)(9). Depolarization of the membrane voltage and increased intracellular Ca 2+ levels both cause BK channels to open, which hyperpolarizes the membrane and closes voltage-dependent channels, including Ca 2+ channels, reducing Ca 2+ influx into the cell. Thus, BK channels are negative-feedback regulators of electrical excitation (membrane depolarization) as well as the numerous biochemical pathways that are stimulated through Ca 2+ acting as a second messenger.The complexity of BK channel function mirrors the complexity of its protein structure. The amino acid sequence includes the integral membrane pore shared by all K + channels, the integral membrane voltage sensor domains present in voltage-dependent channels, and also a cytoplasmic domain (CTD) consisting of approximately 800 amino acids per subunit, which accounts for the C-terminal two thirds of the entire channel. The CTD structure † To whom correspondence should be addressed. confers upon the BK channel its ability to respond to changes in intracellular Ca 2+ . It is also the source of functional heterogeneity through alternate splicing, polymorphisms, phosphorylation, and protein interactions, which modulate BK channel activity (10-12).The only information currently available on BK channel structure is either low resolution from cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) (13) or indirect through homology models. The pore and voltage sensors of the BK channel will undoubtedly resemble the corresponding regions of oth...

In addition to the popular method of fluorescent protein fusion, live cell protein imaging has now seen more and more application of epitope tags. The small size of these tags may reduce functional perturbation and enable signal amplification. To address their background issue, we adapt self-complementing split fluorescent proteins as epitope tags for live cell protein labelling. The two tags, GFP11 and sfCherry11 are derived from the eleventh β-strand of super-folder GFP and sfCherry, respectively. The small size of FP11-tags enables a cost-effective and scalable way to insert them into endogenous genomic loci via CRISPR-mediated homology-directed repair. Tandem arrangement FP11-tags allows proportional enhancement of fluorescence signal in tracking intraflagellar transport particles, or reduction of photobleaching for live microtubule imaging. Finally, we show the utility of tandem GFP11-tag in scaffolding protein oligomerization. These experiments illustrate the versatility of FP11-tag as a labelling tool as well as a multimerization-control tool for both imaging and non-imaging applications.

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Self-complementing split fluorescent proteins (FPs) have been widely used for protein labeling, visualization of subcellular protein localization, and detection of cell–cell contact. To expand this toolset, we have developed a screening strategy for the direct engineering of self-complementing split FPs. Via this strategy, we have generated a yellow–green split-mNeonGreen21–10/11 that improves the ratio of complemented signal to the background of FP1–10-expressing cells compared to the commonly used split GFP1–10/11; as well as a 10-fold brighter red-colored split-sfCherry21–10/11. Based on split sfCherry2, we have engineered a photoactivatable variant that enables single-molecule localization-based super-resolution microscopy. We have demonstrated dual-color endogenous protein tagging with sfCherry211 and GFP11, revealing that endoplasmic reticulum translocon complex Sec61B has reduced abundance in certain peripheral tubules. These new split FPs not only offer multiple colors for imaging interaction networks of endogenous proteins, but also hold the potential to provide orthogonal handles for biochemical isolation of native protein complexes.

Elucidating the wiring diagram of the human cell is a central goal of the postgenomic era. We combined genome engineering, confocal live-cell imaging, mass spectrometry, and data science to systematically map the localization and interactions of human proteins. Our approach provides a data-driven description of the molecular and spatial networks that organize the proteome. Unsupervised clustering of these networks delineates functional communities that facilitate biological discovery. We found that remarkably precise functional information can be derived from protein localization patterns, which often contain enough information to identify molecular interactions, and that RNA binding proteins form a specific subgroup defined by unique interaction and localization properties. Paired with a fully interactive website (opencell.czbiohub.org), our work constitutes a resource for the quantitative cartography of human cellular organization.

A central challenge of the postgenomic era is to comprehensively characterize the cellular role of the ∼20,000 proteins encoded in the human genome. To systematically study protein function in a native cellular background, libraries of human cell lines expressing proteins tagged with a functional sequence at their endogenous loci would be very valuable. Here, using electroporation of Cas9 nuclease/single-guide RNA ribonucleoproteins and taking advantage of a split-GFP system, we describe a scalable method for the robust, scarless, and specific tagging of endogenous human genes with GFP. Our approach requires no molecular cloning and allows a large number of cell lines to be processed in parallel. We demonstrate the scalability of our method by targeting 48 human genes and show that the resulting GFP fluorescence correlates with protein expression levels. We next present how our protocols can be easily adapted for the tagging of a given target with GFP repeats, critically enabling the study of low-abundance proteins. Finally, we show that our GFP tagging approach allows the biochemical isolation of native protein complexes for proteomic studies. Taken together, our results pave the way for the large-scale generation of endogenously tagged human cell lines for the proteome-wide analysis of protein localization and interaction networks in a native cellular context. CRISPR/Cas9 | GFP library | genome engineering M ore than a decade after the completion of the Human Genome Project (1), over 30% of human genes still lack clear functional annotation (2, 3). Functional tagging is a powerful strategy to characterize the cellular role of proteins. In particular, tags allow access to two key features of protein function: localization (using fluorescent tags) and interaction partners (using epitope tags and immunoprecipitation). Hence, by tagging proteins in a systematic manner, a comprehensive functional description of an organism's proteome can be achieved. The power of systematic tagging approaches is best illustrated by studies conducted in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (4). In particular, a genome-wide collection of GFP-tagged yeast strains enabled the systematic study of protein localization in live cells (5), whereas libraries of strains expressing TAP epitope-fusion proteins paved the way for the large-scale isolation and proteomic analysis of protein complexes (6, 7). One of the great advantages of yeast genetics (especially in S. cerevisiae) is the efficiency and relative simplicity of PCR-based homologous recombination (8). As a result, functional tags can be easily inserted in a gene locus of interest, preserving endogenous expression levels and minimizing genomic disruption. Together, these genome-wide tagged libraries helped provide a comprehensive snapshot of the yeast protein landscape under near-native conditions (4, 5, 9-11).The development of clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeat associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9)-based methods has profoundly transformed our ability to dir...