CTRL Enables Gene-Specific RNA Regulation Using CRISPR-Cas7-11

Advancements in synthetic biology have enabled the development of precision gene expression technologies for comprehensive investigations of biological and biochemical networks. Here, we describe the development of a refined and innovative tool, CRISPR-Cas Transgenic Repressible eLement (CTRL), which utilizes the direct repeat processing activity of the recently discovered CRISPR-Cas7-11 effector to site-specifically target synthetic mRNA molecules. We demonstrate that CTRL exhibits high efficiency, tunable regulation of expression, and gene-specific repression of mRNA and protein expression. We engineered multiple permutations of the Cas7-11 effector that differ in their ability to reduce gene expression, suggesting flexibility for the application of choice. CTRL is a novel variation on gene repression technology that exhibits broad applicability across multiple model systems.