5Y36

Cryo-EM structure of SpCas9-sgRNA-DNA ternary complex

Summary for 5Y36

• Entry DOI: 10.2210/pdb5y36/pdb
• EMDB information: 8236
• Descriptor: CRISPR-associated endonuclease Cas9/Csn1, single-guide RNA, complementary DNA strand, ... (5 entities in total)
• Functional Keywords: genome editting, cripsr-cas9, dna cleavage mechanism, hydrolase-dna-rna complex, hydrolase-rna-dna complex, hydrolase/rna/dna
• Biological source: Streptococcus pyogenes serotype M1; More
• Total number of polymer chains: 4
• Total formula weight: 215795.84

Authors

Huang, Q.,Li, G.,Huai, C. (deposition date: 2017-07-27, release date: 2017-12-06, Last modification date: 2024-03-27)

Primary citation

Huai, C.,Li, G.,Yao, R.,Zhang, Y.,Cao, M.,Kong, L.,Jia, C.,Yuan, H.,Chen, H.,Lu, D.,Huang, Q.
Structural insights into DNA cleavage activation of CRISPR-Cas9 system
Nat Commun, 8:1375-1375, 2017

PubMed Abstract: CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been widely used for genome engineering. Its RNA-guided endonuclease Cas9 binds specifically to target DNA and then cleaves the two DNA strands with HNH and RuvC nuclease domains. However, structural information regarding the DNA cleavage-activating state of two nuclease domains remains sparse. Here, we report a 5.2 Å cryo-EM structure of Cas9 in complex with sgRNA and target DNA. This structure reveals a conformational state of Cas9 in which the HNH domain is closest to the DNA cleavage site. Compared with two known HNH states, our structure shows that the HNH active site moves toward the cleavage site by about 25 and 13 Å, respectively. In combination with EM-based molecular dynamics simulations, we show that residues of the nuclease domains in our structure could form cleavage-compatible conformations with the target DNA. Together, these results strongly suggest that our cryo-EM structure resembles a DNA cleavage-activating architecture of Cas9.

PubMed: 29123204
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01496-2

Experimental method

ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (5.2 Å)