Balancing off-target and on-target considerations for optimized CRISPR-Cas9 knockout library design.

Cell genomics
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The continued development of high-dimensional CRISPR screen readouts, such as single-cell RNA sequencing and high-content imaging, necessitates compact libraries to enable functional interrogation at genome scale. Improved genome annotations cause library deprecation over time, further motivating an updated genome-wide design effort. Additionally, while on-target efficacy and off-target avoidance are often optimized in isolation, we lack a robust framework for simultaneously weighing and balancing these competing priorities. Here, we present a selection strategy that identifies guides with sufficient off-target activity to justify omission from the library, thus avoiding the unnecessary exclusion of active guides, allowing the inclusion of those with maximal on-target activity. We create, validate, and make available to the community the Jacquere library for knockout screens of the human genome, as well as its mouse counterpart, Julianna, to facilitate gene function discovery at scale.

Year of Publication
2026
Journal
Cell genomics
Pages
101190
Date Published
03/2026
ISSN
2666-979X
DOI
10.1016/j.xgen.2026.101190
PubMed ID
41887225
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