Will my protein work? A compendium of CRISPR-Cas introduced point mutations in commonly used proteins

A frequent use of CRISPR-Cas technology is to introduce reporter genes or conditional alleles into an animal model. These tend to utilize long DNA repair templates. As chemical synthesis of DNA is error prone, this has resulted in the generation of mice which carry point mutations in sequences commonly introduced. Mutations can also be introduced due to the inexactness of the various repair mechanisms, or in the case of Lox sites, due to their palindromic nature.

In some cases, no founders with the correct sequence are generated, leaving only mutation bearing founders. However, they may still be useful, if it is known whether the protein or sequence retains its function. We have complied a manually curated set of mutations that have been tested for function, including fluorescent markers and Cre recombinase, as well as Lox sites. We are now opening the collection to the public, and invite others to deposit similar information. All target genes or genomic loci are de-identified, so the confidentiality of the research subject is maintained. This compendium should be a useful resource for the transgenic community and should prevent unnecessary repetition of experiments and animal use.