Cellecta CRISPR-Test Assay Kits provide a convenient flow assay to accurately measure the activity of the Cas9 variant expressed by your cells. Each kit contains a mix of lentiviral particles with two different fluorescent markers. One fluorescent marker responds to the Cas9 or dCas9-variant activity measured by the kit, and the other marker provides a normalization control.
Would you like to accurately measure the activity of CRISPR Cas9 nuclease (for CRISPR KO), dCas9-KRAB (for CRISPRi), or dCas9-activator such as dCas9-VPH (for CRISPRa) in your engineered cells before starting a CRISPR screen or other CRISPR study? Cellecta’s CRISPR-Test™ Assay Kits provide a convenient and quantitative assay for this purpose.
Each Assay Kit contains a mix of ready-to-transduce viral particles with one construct that is responsive to the Cas9 variant being measured, and the other, a negative control. Each of the constructs have different fluorescent protein markers (i.e., GFP or RFP) so the change in the level of one of the fluorescent markers relative to the other be assessed by flow analysis and provides an accurate measurement of the activity of the Cas9 variant expressed in the cells.
Additionally, a set of four Cas9 expression constructs is available at a reduced price when purchased in conjunction with one of the CRISPR-Test Assay Kits.
Cellecta offers several kits to measure different Cas9 variants using either of two different mechanisms.
Our Fluorescent-Reporter CRISPR-Test™ Functional Assays directly knock out, knock down, or induce a GFP reporter gene. Whereas, our Essential-Gene CRISPRtest™ Cas9 Activity Assays knock out an essential endogenous gene required for viability, which leads to a loss of the cells with the fluorescent marker. Both assays have a similar protocol:
(1) Transduce your target population of putative Cas9, dCas9-activator, or dCas9-repressor cells with the ready-to-transduce lentiviral mix which contains fluorescently labeled lentiviral constructs, and sgRNA compatible with the Cas9 variant being measured.
(2) Determine the baseline fluorescence ratio of two fluorescent markers by flow cytometry.
(3) After several days, again measure the fluorescent cells by flow.
(4) Assess Cas9 or dCas9-variant activity based on the difference in the initial vs. end-point fluorescence ratios.
Conveniently and accurately measure the activity levels of CRISPR Cas9, dCas9-repressors (e.g., dCas9-KRAB), or dCas9-activators (e.g., dCas9-VP64, dCas-VPR, or Cellecta’s dCas9-VPH). The assay works with any S. pyogenes Cas9 or dCas9 variant that complexes with a standard sgRNA design.
These Kits are useful for assessing Cas9 activity in cells before running CRISPR screens with pooled sgRNA libraries and for studies using CRISPRa or CRISPRi gene modulation where the dCas9-activators must be consistently expressed for the transactivation or repression of the target gene to remain in effect.
The Fluorescent-Reporter CRISPR-Test™ Functional Assays for Cas9, dCas9-activator, and dCas9-Repressor directly knockout, knockdown, or induce expression of a GFP reporter gene, which leads to loss (or activation for the dCas9-activator assay) of fluorescence. These assays work in any mammalian cell and typically can be run in ~4 days.
The Essential-Gene CRISPRtest™ Cas9 Activity Assays knockout an essential gene required for cell viability. The disruption of this gene leads to loss of the cells with the fluorescent marker. A construct with a non-targeting sgRNA has a second fluorescent marker, which is used for normalization. These assays are specific for a target organism--human or mouse cells. Since loss of fluorescence is dependent on cell death, the assay depends on the cell growth rate and usually take 6-10 days to perform. We offer these assays with both GFP and BFP readouts.
