On the design of CRISPR-based single-cell molecular screens

Andrew J Hill*, José L McFaline-Figueroa*, Lea M Starita, Molly J Gasperini, Kenneth A Matreyek, Jonathan Packer, Dana Jackson, Jay Shendure**, Cole Trapnell**
Nature Methods (2018)

Abstract

Several groups recently coupled CRISPR perturbations and single-cell RNA-seq for pooled genetic screens. We demonstrate that vector designs of these studies are susceptible to ~50% swapping of guide RNA–barcode associations because of lentiviral template switching. We optimized a published alternative, CROP-seq, in which the guide RNA also serves as the barcode, and here confirm that this strategy performs robustly and doubled the rate at which guides are assigned to cells to 94%.

*co-first author

**co-senior author