The Manipulation of RNA-Guided Nucleic Acid Cleavage with Ninhydrin Chemistry

CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) systems have been established as valuable genome-editing tools. Controlling CRISPR systems has high biological significance and this field has garnered intense interest. There is a considerable need for simple approaches with no need for protein engineering. The CRISPR systems usually require a guide RNA (gRNA) moiety to recruit and direct the nuclease complexes. In this respect, the ninhydrin (1,2,3-indantrione monohydrate) seems to have considerable potential, as yet unexploited, for modifying gRNA. In this study, ninhydrin chemistry is explored for reversible postsynthetic modification of gRNA molecules. It is further shown that ninhydrin chemistry is efficient in modulating two important CRISPR systems. Thus, ninhydrin chemistry exhibits potential applications in future chemical biology studies.