[PDF][PDF] A rapid method for directed gene knockout for screening in G0 zebrafish

RS Wu, II Lam, H Clay, DN Duong, RC Deo… - Developmental cell, 2018 - cell.com
RS Wu, II Lam, H Clay, DN Duong, RC Deo, SR Coughlin
Developmental cell, 2018cell.com
Zebrafish is a powerful model for forward genetics. Reverse genetic approaches are limited
by the time required to generate stable mutant lines. We describe a system for gene
knockout that consistently produces null phenotypes in G0 zebrafish. Yolk injection of sets of
four CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complexes redundantly targeting a single gene
recapitulated germline-transmitted knockout phenotypes in> 90% of G0 embryos for each of
8 test genes. Early embryonic (6 hpf) and stable adult phenotypes were produced …
Summary
Zebrafish is a powerful model for forward genetics. Reverse genetic approaches are limited by the time required to generate stable mutant lines. We describe a system for gene knockout that consistently produces null phenotypes in G0 zebrafish. Yolk injection of sets of four CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complexes redundantly targeting a single gene recapitulated germline-transmitted knockout phenotypes in >90% of G0 embryos for each of 8 test genes. Early embryonic (6 hpf) and stable adult phenotypes were produced. Simultaneous multi-gene knockout was feasible but associated with toxicity in some cases. To facilitate use, we generated a lookup table of four-guide sets for 21,386 zebrafish genes and validated several. Using this resource, we targeted 50 cardiomyocyte transcriptional regulators and uncovered a role of zbtb16a in cardiac development. This system provides a platform for rapid screening of genes of interest in development, physiology, and disease models in zebrafish.
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