Enhanced scale and scope of genome engineering and regulation using CRISPR/Cas in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Although only 6 years old, the CRISPR system has blossomed into a tool for rapid, on-demand genome engineering and gene regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In this minireview, we discuss fundamental CRISPR technologies, tools to improve the efficiency and capabilities of gene targeting, and cutting-edge techniques to explore gene editing and transcriptional regulation at genome scale using pooled approaches. The focus is on applications to metabolic engineering with topics including development of techniques to edit the genome in multiplex, tools to enable large numbers of genetic modifications using pooled single-guide RNA libraries and efforts to enable programmable transcriptional regulation using endonuclease-null Cas enzymes.