RNA Targeting and Editing with CRISPR-Cas13

RNA plays important and diverse roles in biology, but molecular tools to manipulate and measure RNA are limited. We demonstrate that RNA- targeting CRISPR effector Cas13 can be engineered for mammalian cell RNA knockdown, binding, and RNA editing. Cas13 can be heterologously expressed in mammalian and plant cells for targeted knockdown of either reporter or endogenous transcripts, targeted RNA binding for transcript imaging, and programmable RNA editing. Our results establish CRISPR-Cas13 as a flexible platform for RNA targeting with wide applicability for studying RNA in mammalian cells.