Global chromosome rearrangement induced by CRISPR-Cas9 reshapes the genome and transcriptome of human cells

Chromosome rearrangement plays important roles in development, carcinogenesis and evolution. However, its mechanism and subsequent effects are not fully understood. Large-scale chromosome rearrangement has been performed in the simple eukaryote, wine yeast, but the relative research in mammalian cells remains at the level of individual chromosome rearrangement due to technical limitations. In this study, we used CRISPR-Cas9 to target the highly repetitive human endogenous retrotransposons, LINE-1 and Alu, resulting in a large number of DNA double-strand breaks in the chromosomes. While this operation killed the majority of the cells, we eventually obtained live cell groups. Karyotype analysis and genome re-sequencing proved that we have achieved global chromosome rearrangement (GCR) in human cells. The copy number variations of the GCR genomes showed typical patterns observed in tumor genomes. The ATAC-seq and RNA-seq further revealed that the epigenetic and transcriptomic landscapes were deeply reshaped by GCR. Gene expressions related to p53 pathway, DNA repair, cell cycle and apoptosis were greatly altered to facilitate the cell survival. Our study provided a new application of CRISPR-Cas9 and a practical approach for GCR in complex mammalian genomes.