PUBLICATION

ErCas12a and T5exo-ErCas12a Mediate Simple and Efficient Genome Editing in Zebrafish

Authors
Han, B., Zhang, Y., Zhou, Y., Zhang, B., Krueger, C.J., Bi, X., Zhu, Z., Tong, X., Zhang, B.
ID
ZDB-PUB-220327-6
Date
2022
Source
Biology   11(3): (Journal)
Registered Authors
Tong, Xiangjun, Zhang, Bo
Keywords
ErCas12a, MMEJ, NHEJ, genome editing, knockin, zebrafish
MeSH Terms
none
PubMed
35336785 Full text @ Biology (Basel)
Abstract
In zebrafish, RNA-guided endonucleases such as Cas9 have enabled straightforward gene knockout and the construction of reporter lines or conditional alleles via targeted knockin strategies. However, the performance of another commonly used CRISPR system, Cas12a, is significantly limited due to both the requirement of delivery as purified protein and the necessity of heatshock of injected embryos. To explore the potential of CRISPR/Cas12a-mediated genome editing and simplify its application in zebrafish, we took advantage of the recently reported mRNA-active ErCas12a and investigated its efficacy for the knockin of large DNA fragments, such as fluorescent reporter genes. For knockin via either microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ) or non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) pathways, ErCas12a-injected embryos with a brief heatshock displayed comparable knockin efficiency with Cas9 injection. Through the fusion of T5 exonuclease (T5exo) to the N-terminus of ErCas12a (T5exo-ErCas12a), we further demonstrated high efficiency gene knockout and knockin at a normal incubation temperature, eliminating the embryo-damaging heatshock step. In summary, our results demonstrate the feasibility of ErCas12a- and T5exo-ErCas12a-mediated genome manipulation under simplified conditions, and further expand the genome editing toolbox for various applications in zebrafish.
Genes / Markers
Figures
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping