Abstract

CRISPR/Cas9 engineering of the CYP3A5 *3 locus (rs776746) in human liver cell line HuH-7 (CYP3A5 *3/*3) led to three CYP3A5 *1 cell lines by deletion of the exon 3B splice junction or point mutation. Cell lines CYP3A5 *1/*3 sd (single deletion), CYP3A5 *1/*1 dd (double deletion) or CYP3A5 *1/*3 pm (point mutation) expressed the CYP3A5 *1 mRNA, had elevated CYP3A5 mRNA (p<0.0005 for all engineered cell lines) and protein expression compared with HuH-7. In metabolism assays, HuH-7 had less tacrolimus (Tac) (all p-values < 0.05) or midazolam (MDZ) (all p-values < 0.005) disappearance than all engineered cell lines. HuH-7 had less 1-OH MDZ (all p-values < 0.0005) or 4-OH (all p-values < 0.005) production in metabolism assays than all bioengineered cell lines. We confirmed CYP3A5 metabolic activity with the CYP3A4 selective inhibitor CYP3CIDE. This is the first report of genomic CYP3A5 bioengineering in human cell lines with drug metabolism analysis.