pCEC-red: a new vector for easier and faster CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

CRISPR-Cas9 technology is widely used for precise and specific editing of Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome to obtain marker-free engineered hosts. Targeted Double Strand Breaks (DSB) is controlled by a guide RNA (gRNA), a chimeric RNA containing a structural segment for Cas9 binding and a 20-mer guide sequence that hybridises to the genomic DNA target. Introducing the 20-mer guide sequence into gRNA expression vectors often requires complex, time-consuming and/or expensive cloning procedures. We present a new plasmid for CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing in S. cerevisiae, pCEC-red. This tool allows i) to transform yeast with both Cas9 and gRNA expression cassettes in a single plasmid and ii) to insert the 20-mer sequence in the plasmid with high efficiency, thanks to Golden Gate Assembly and iii) a red chromoprotein-based screening to speed up the selection of correct plasmids. We tested genome-editing efficiency of pCEC-red by targeting the ADE2 gene. We chose three different 20-mer targets and designed two types of repair fragments to test pCEC-red for precision editing and for large DNA region replacement procedures. We obtained high efficiencies (close to 90%) for both engineering procedures, suggesting that the pCEC system can be used for fast and reliable marker-free genome editing.