oFlowSeq: A multiplexed quantitative approach to identify genes affecting cell type enrichment using mosaic CRISPR-Cas9 edited cerebral organoids

Abstract Cerebral organoids are comprised of diverse cell types found in the developing human brain, and can be leveraged for the identification of critical cell types perturbed by genetic risk variants in common, neuropsychiatric disorders. There is great interest in developing high-throughput, multiplexed technologies to associate genetic variants with cell types. Here, we describe a multiplexed, quantitative approach (oFlowSeq) by utilizing CRISPR-Cas9, FACS sorting and next-generation sequencing. Using oFlowSeq, we found that deleterious mutations in autism-associated gene KCTD13 resulted in increased proportions of Nestin+ cells and decreased proportions of TRA-1- 60+ cells within mosaic cerebral organoids. We further identified that a locus-wide CRISPR-Cas9 survey of another 19 genes in the 16p11.2 locus resulted in >2.5% maximum editing efficiencies for short and long indels, suggesting a high feasibility for an unbiased, locus-wide experiment using oFlowSeq. Our approach presents a novel method to identify genotype-to-cell type imbalances in an unbiased, multiplexed, quantitative manner.