CRISPR-Cas9 epigenome editing enables high-throughput screening for functional regulatory elements in the human genome [SKBR3 DNase]

Large genome mapping consortia and thousands of genome-wide association studies have identified non-protein coding elements in the genome as a having a central role in tissue development, cell-type specification, response to environmental or pharmacologic signals, and susceptibility to most common diseases. However, decoding the function of the millions of putative regulatory elements discovered in these studies remains a primary challenge. New CRISPR/Cas9-based epigenome editing technologies have enabled the precise perturbation of the activity of specific regulatory elements. Here we describe CRISPR/Cas9-based Epigenomic Regulatory Element Screening (CERES) for high-throughput screening of regulatory element activity within the native genomic context. We perform both loss- and gain-of-function screens with complementary epigenome editing tools to identify known and unknown regulatory elements of medically relevant genes in human cells. The high-throughput functional annotation of putative regulatory elements by CERES constitutes a new platform for screening biological mechanisms that cannot be perturbed by traditional methods. Pooled gRNA screens with dCas9 based epigenome editing tools for regulatory element discovery.