Genome-wide in-locus epitope tagging of Arabidopsis proteins using prime editors

Prime editors (PEs), which are CRISPR-Cas9 nickase (H840A)-reverse transcriptase fusion proteins programmed with prime editing guide RNAs (pegRNAs), can not only edit bases but also install transversions, insertions, or deletions without both donor DNA and double-strand breaks at the target DNA. As the demand for in-locus tagging is increasing, to reflect gene expression dynamics influenced by endogenous genomic contexts, we demonstrated that PEs can be used to introduce the hemagglutinin (HA) epitope tag to a target gene locus, enabling molecular and biochemical studies using in-locus tagged plants. To promote genome-wide in-locus tagging, we also implemented a publicly available database that designs pegRNAs for in-locus tagging of all the Arabidopsis genes. [BMB Reports 2024; 57(1): 66-70].