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research article

Custom CRISPR—Cas9 PAM variants via scalable engineering and machine learning

Silverstein, Rachel A.
•
Kim, Nahye
•
Kroell, Ann-Sophie
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April 22, 2025
Nature

Engineering and characterizing proteins can be time-consuming and cumbersome, motivating the development of generalist CRISPR-Cas enzymes1–4 to enable diverse genome editing applications. However, such enzymes have caveats such as an increased risk of off-target editing3,5,6. To enable scalable reprogramming of Cas9 enzymes, here we combined high-throughput protein engineering with machine learning (ML) to derive bespoke editors more uniquely suited to specific targets. Via structure/function-informed saturation mutagenesis and bacterial selections, we obtained nearly 1,000 engineered SpCas9 enzymes and characterized their protospacer-adjacent motif7 (PAM) requirements to train a neural network that relates amino acid sequence to PAM specificity. By utilizing the resulting PAM ML algorithm (PAMmla) to predict the PAMs of 64 million SpCas9 enzymes, we identified efficacious and specific enzymes that outperform evolution-based and engineered SpCas9 enzymes as nucleases and base editors in human cells while reducing off-targets. An in silico directed evolution method enables user-directed Cas9 enzyme design, including for allele-selective targeting of the RHO P23H allele in human cells and mice. Together, PAMmla integrates ML and protein engineering to curate a catalog of SpCas9 enzymes with distinct PAM requirements, and motivates the use of efficient and safe bespoke Cas9 enzymes instead of generalist enzymes for various applications.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1038/s41586-025-09021-y
Author(s)
Silverstein, Rachel A.

Harvard University

Kim, Nahye

Massachusetts General Hospital

Kroell, Ann-Sophie

Massachusetts General Hospital

Walton, Russell T.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Delano, Justin

Harvard University

Butcher, Rossano

Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary

Pacesa, Martin  

EPFL

Smith, Baz

Massachusetts General Hospital

Christie, Kathleen A.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Ha, Leillani L.

Massachusetts General Hospital

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Date Issued

2025-04-22

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Published in
Nature
Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LPDI  
Available on Infoscience
May 7, 2025
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/249914
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