Highly efficient base editing in bacteria using a Cas9-cytidine deaminase fusion

The ability to precisely edit individual bases of bacterial genomes would accelerate the investigation of the function of genes. Here we utilized a nickase Cas9-cytidine deaminase fusion protein to direct the conversion of cytosine to thymine within prokaryotic cells, resulting in high mutagenesis frequencies in Escherichia coli and Brucella melitensis. Our study suggests that CRISPR/Cas9-guided base-editing is a viable alternative approach to generate mutant bacterial strains.