Combinatorial single-cell CRISPR screens by direct guide RNA capture and targeted sequencing. Author Joseph Replogle, Thomas Norman, Albert Xu, Jeffrey Hussmann, Jin Chen, J Zachery Cogan, Elliott Meer, Jessica Terry, Daniel Riordan, Niranjan Srinivas, Ian Fiddes, Joseph Arthur, Luigi Alvarado, Katherine Pfeiffer, Tarjei Mikkelsen, Jonathan Weissman, Britt Adamson Publication Year 2020 Type Journal Article Abstract Single-cell CRISPR screens enable the exploration of mammalian gene function and genetic regulatory networks. However, use of this technology has been limited by reliance on indirect indexing of single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs). Here we present direct-capture Perturb-seq, a versatile screening approach in which expressed sgRNAs are sequenced alongside single-cell transcriptomes. Direct-capture Perturb-seq enables detection of multiple distinct sgRNA sequences from individual cells and thus allows pooled single-cell CRISPR screens to be easily paired with combinatorial perturbation libraries that contain dual-guide expression vectors. We demonstrate the utility of this approach for high-throughput investigations of genetic interactions and, leveraging this ability, dissect epistatic interactions between cholesterol biogenesis and DNA repair. Using direct capture Perturb-seq, we also show that targeting individual genes with multiple sgRNAs per cell improves efficacy of CRISPR interference and activation, facilitating the use of compact, highly active CRISPR libraries for single-cell screens. Last, we show that hybridization-based target enrichment permits sensitive, specific sequencing of informative transcripts from single-cell RNA-seq experiments. Keywords Humans, Gene Expression Regulation, HEK293 Cells, Single-Cell Analysis, Transcriptome, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, CRISPR-Cas Systems, Gene Targeting, Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques, RNA, Guide, Kinetoplastida Journal Nat Biotechnol Volume 38 Issue 8 Pages 954-961 Date Published 2020 Aug ISSN Number 1546-1696 DOI 10.1038/s41587-020-0470-y Alternate Journal Nat Biotechnol PMCID PMC7416462 PMID 32231336 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML