Interpolation of microbiome composition in longitudinal data sets.

Unlabelled: The human gut microbiome significantly impacts health, prompting a rise in longitudinal studies that capture microbiome samples at multiple time points. Such studies allow researchers to characterize microbiome changes over time, but importantly, also present major analytical challenges due to incomplete or irregular sampling. To address this challenge, longitudinal microbiome studies often employ various interpolation methods, aiming to infer missing microbiome data.

A chemically controlled Cas9 switch enables temporal modulation of diverse effectors.

CRISPR-Cas9 has yielded a plethora of effectors, including targeted transcriptional activators, base editors and prime editors. Current approaches for inducibly modulating Cas9 activity lack temporal precision and require extensive screening and optimization. We describe a versatile, chemically controlled and rapidly activated single-component DNA-binding Cas9 switch, ciCas9, which we use to confer temporal control over seven Cas9 effectors, including two cytidine base editors, two adenine base editors, a dual base editor, a prime editor and a transcriptional activator.