Inhibition of uPA expression by CRISPR-dCas9 DNA methyltransferases

We report the generation of CRISPR-dCas9 DNA methyltransferases to mediate targeted DNA methylation. Using the dCas9-BFP-DNMT3A and dCas9-BFP-DNMT3B methyltransferases, we have demonstrated that these two methyltransferase can mediate targeted methylation in three human genes tested: uPA, TGFBR3, and CDKN2A in human HEK293T cells. We also showed that these methyltransferases could mediate gene inhibition. five samples co-transfected with five uPA sgRNAs and each of the four dCas9 fusions, or control transfection with pUC19 plasmid