Efficient genome editing of genes involved in neural crest development using the CRISPR/Cas9 system in Xenopus embryos

Abstract

Background: The RNA guided CRISPR/Cas9 nucleases have been proven to be effective for gene disruption in various animal models including Xenopus tropicalis. The neural crest (NC) is a transient cell population during embryonic development and contributes to a large variety of tissues. Currently, loss-of-function studies on NC development in X. tropicalis are largely based on morpholino antisense oligonucleotide. It is worthwhile establishing targeted gene knockout X. tropicails line using CRISPR/Cas9 system to study NC development. Methods: We utilized CRISPR/Cas9 to disrupt genes that are involved in NC formation in X. tropicalis embryos. A single sgRNA and Cas9 mRNA synthesized in vitro, were co-injected into X. tropicalis embryos at one-cell stage to induce single gene disruption. We also induced duplex mutations, large segmental deletions and inversions in X. tropicalis by injecting Cas9 and a pair of sgRNAs. The specificity of CRISPR/Cas9 was assessed in X. tropicalis embryos and the Cas9 nickase was used to reduce the off-target cleavages. Finally, we crossed the G0 mosaic frogs with targeted mutations to wild type frogs and obtained the germline transmission. Results: Total 16 target sites in 15 genes were targeted by CRISPR/Cas9 and resulted in successful indel mutations at 14 loci with disruption efficiencies in a range from 9.3 to 57.8 %. Furthermore, we demonstrated the feasibility of generation of duplex mutations, large segmental deletions and inversions by using Cas9 and a pair of sgRNAs. We observed that CRISPR/Cas9 displays obvious off-target effects at some loci in X. tropicalis embryos. Such off-target cleavages was reduced by using the D10A Cas9 nickase. Finally, the Cas9 induced indel mutations were efficiently passed to G1 offspring. Conclusion: Our study proved that CRISPR/Cas9 could mediate targeted gene mutation in X. tropicalis with high efficiency. This study expands the application of CRISPR/Cas9 platform in X. tropicalis and set a basis for studying NC development using genetic approach.