RESEARCH ARTICLE Arrayed CRISPRi and quantitative imaging describe the morphotypic landscape of essential mycobacterial genes Timothy J de Wet1,2*, Kristy R Winkler1,2, Musa Mhlanga2,3, Valerie Mizrahi1,2,4, Digby F Warner1,2,4* 1SAMRC/NHLS/UCT Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit, Department of Pathology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; 2Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; 3Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; 4Wellcome Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Africa, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa Abstract Mycobacterium tuberculosis possesses a large number of genes of unknown or predicted function, undermining fundamental understanding of pathogenicity and drug susceptibility. To address this challenge, we developed a high-throughput functional genomics approach combining inducible CRISPR-interference and image-based analyses of morphological features and sub-cellular chromosomal localizations in the related non-pathogen, M. smegmatis. Applying automated imaging and analysis to 263 essential gene knockdown mutants in an arrayed library, we derive robust, quantitative descriptions of bacillary morphologies consequent on gene silencing. Leveraging statistical-learning, we demonstrate that functionally related genes cluster by morphotypic similarity and that this information can be used to inform investigations of gene function. Exploiting this observation, we infer the existence of a mycobacterial restriction- modification system, and identify filamentation as a defining mycobacterial response to histidine *For correspondence:
[email protected] (TJW); starvation. Our results support the application of large-scale image-based analyses for
[email protected] (DFW) mycobacterial functional genomics, simultaneously establishing the utility of this approach for drug mechanism-of-action studies.