CRISPRa screen with SARS-CoV-2 authentic virus in HEK293-ACE2

These studies used CRISPR-activation in order to identify genes that could confer increased survival to SARS-CoV-2. To do this, a clonal cell line expressing ACE2 and CRISPR-activation (Suntag) machinery was engineered. Then the Weismann library of activating guides was used to infect these populations at a ~2000 coverage. Diversity and experimental controls were used for analysis HEK293-ACE2 cells were infected using the Weissman CRISPRa sgRNA library. Two experiments per condition were set up. Controls show the diversity, while experimentals were collected from surviving cells exposed to a 50% lethal dose of SARS-CoV-2 (wuhan)