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1. Efficient CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing in a tilapia cell line model using endogenous promoters

   Hamar, JC*; Kültz, D (January 2021, SICB Virtual Annual Meeting 2021)

   null (Ed.)

   Cell cultures are effective supplemental models to study specific biochemical pathways used for environmental adaption in animals. They enable isolation from system influence and facilitate control the extracellular environment. For work focusing on fish species many representative cell lines now exist, including a tilapia brain cell line (OmB) developed in our lab. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing is an additional tool aiding these studies by allowing manipulation of specific genetic loci and evaluating their causal relationship between phenotypes of interest. However, established CRISPR/Cas9 gene targeting tools and methods often have not functioned as efficiently in fish cells as seen in other animal cell models such as mammalian cell lines, consistent with our initial attempts to apply CRISPR/Cas9 in OmB cells that failed to indicate genomic alteration at the targeted sites. Poor expression of heterologous promoters in OmB cells was hypothesized to be a primary cause for this occurrence so we constructed a custom plasmid vector based system utilizing tilapia endogenous promoters (EF1 alpha to express Cas9 and a U6 to express gRNAs). This system demonstrated substantial editing of most target sites attempted with mutational efficiency as high 80%. This work specifically highlighted the importance of phylogenetic proximity in selection of a polymerase III promoter for gRNA expression as commonly used interspecies U6 promoters (human and zebrafish) yielded no detectable gene editing when applied in this system with a common gRNA target sequence. These new tools will allow generation of knockout cell lines for gene targeting studies in tilapia and other phylogenetically close fish species. 

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2. Transcriptional up-regulation of the myo -inositol biosynthesis pathway is enhanced by NFAT5 in hyperosmotically stressed tilapia cells

   https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpcell.00187.2024  

   Hamar, Jens; Cnaani, Avner; Kültz, Dietmar (July 2024, American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology)

   Euryhaline fish experience variable osmotic environments requiring physiological adjustments to tolerate elevated salinity. Mozambique tilapia ( Oreochromis mossambicus) possess one of the highest salinity tolerance limits of any fish. In tilapia and other euryhaline fish species the myo-inositol biosynthesis (MIB) pathway enzymes, myo-inositol phosphate synthase (MIPS) and inositol monophosphatase 1 (IMPA1.1), are among the most upregulated mRNAs and proteins indicating the high importance of this pathway for hyper-osmotic (HO) stress tolerance. These abundance changes must be precluded by HO perception and signaling mechanism activation to regulate the expression of MIPS and IMPA1.1 genes. In previous work using a O. mossambicus cell line (OmB), a reoccurring osmosensitive enhancer element (OSRE1) in both MIPS and IMPA1.1 was shown to transcriptionally upregulate these enzymes in response to HO stress. The OSRE1 core consensus (5'-GGAAA-3') matches the core binding sequence of the predominant mammalian HO response transcription factor, nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT5). HO challenged OmB cells showed an increase in NFAT5 mRNA suggesting NFAT5 may contribute to MIB pathway regulation in euryhaline fish. Ectopic expression of wild-type NFAT5 induced an IMPA1.1 promoter-driven reporter by 5.1-fold (p < 0.01). Moreover, expression of dominant negative NFAT5 in HO media resulted in a 47% suppression of the reporter signal (p<0.005). Furthermore, reductions of IMPA1.1 (37-49%) and MIPS (6-37%) mRNA abundance were observed in HO challenged NFAT5 knockout cells relative to control cells. Collectively, these multiple lines of experimental evidence establish NFAT5 as a tilapia transcription factor contributing to HO induced activation of the MIB pathway. 

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3. Tomato fruit as a model for tissue-specific gene silencing in crop plants

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41438-020-00363-4  

   Feder, Ari; Jensen, Sarah; Wang, Anquan; Courtney, Lance; Middleton, Lesley; Van Eck, Joyce; Liu, Yongsheng; Giovannoni, James J. (September 2020, Horticulture Research)

   Abstract Use of CRISPR-Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated 9)-mediated genome editing has proliferated for use in numerous plant species to modify gene function and expression, usually in the context of either transient or stably inherited genetic alternations. While extremely useful in many applications, modification of some loci yields outcomes detrimental to further experimental evaluation or viability of the target organism. Expression of Cas9 under a promoter conferring gene knockouts in a tissue-specific subset of genomes has been demonstrated in insect and animal models, and recently inArabidopsis. We developed an in planta GFP (green fluorescent protein) assay system to demonstrate fruit-specific gene editing in tomato using aphosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase 2gene promoter. We then targeted a SET-domain containing polycomb protein, SlEZ2, previously shown to yield pleiotropic phenotypes when targeted via³⁵S-driven RNA interference and we were able to characterize fruit phenotypes absent additional developmental perturbations. Tissue-specific gene editing will have applications in assessing function of essential genes otherwise difficult to study via germline modifications and will provide routes to edited genomes in tissues that could not otherwise be recovered when their germline modification perturbs their normal development. 

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4. Efficient and modular CRISPR‐Cas9 vector system for Physcomitrella patens

   https://doi.org/10.1002/pld3.168  

   Mallett, Darren R.; Chang, Mingqin; Cheng, Xiaohang; Bezanilla, Magdalena (September 2019, Plant Direct)

   Abstract CRISPR‐Cas9 has been shown to be a valuable tool in recent years, allowing researchers to precisely edit the genome using an RNA‐guided nuclease to initiate double‐strand breaks. Until recently, classical RAD51‐mediated homologous recombination has been a powerful tool for gene targeting in the mossPhyscomitrella patens. However, CRISPR‐Cas9‐mediated genome editing inP. patenswas shown to be more efficient than traditional homologous recombination (Plant Biotechnology Journal, 15, 2017, 122). CRISPR‐Cas9 provides the opportunity to efficiently edit the genome at multiple loci as well as integrate sequences at precise locations in the genome using a simple transient transformation. To fully take advantage of CRISPR‐Cas9 genome editing inP. patens, here we describe the generation and use of a flexible and modular CRISPR‐Cas9 vector system. Without the need for gene synthesis, this vector system enables editing of up to 12 loci simultaneously. Using this system, we generated multiple lines that had null alleles at four distant loci. We also found that targeting multiple sites within a single locus can produce larger deletions, but the success of this depends on individual protospacers. To take advantage of homology‐directed repair, we developed modular vectors to rapidly generate DNA donor plasmids to efficiently introduce DNA sequences encoding for fluorescent proteins at the 5′ and 3′ ends of gene coding regions. With regard to homology‐directed repair experiments, we found that if the protospacer sequence remains on the DNA donor plasmid, then Cas9 cleaves the plasmid target as well as the genomic target. This can reduce the efficiency of introducing sequences into the genome. Furthermore, to ensure the generation of a null allele near the Cas9 cleavage site, we generated a homology plasmid harboring a “stop codon cassette” with downstream near‐effortless genotyping. 

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5. PAM‐relaxed and temperature‐tolerant CRISPR‐Mb3Cas12a single transcript unit systems for efficient singular and multiplexed genome editing in rice, maize, and tomato

   https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.14486  

   Liu, Shishi; He, Yao; Fan, Tingting; Zhu, Meirui; Qi, Caiyan; Ma, Yanqin; Yang, Mengqiao; Yang, Liang; Tang, Xu; Zhou, Jianping; et al (January 2025, Plant Biotechnology Journal)

   Summary Class 2 Type V‐A CRISPR‐Cas (Cas12a) nucleases are powerful genome editing tools, particularly effective in A/T‐rich genomic regions, complementing the widely used CRISPR‐Cas9 in plants. To enhance the utility of Cas12a, we investigate three Cas12a orthologs—Mb3Cas12a, PrCas12a, and HkCas12a—in plants. Protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) requirements, editing efficiencies, and editing profiles are compared in rice. Among these orthologs, Mb3Cas12a exhibits high editing efficiency at target sites with a simpler, relaxed TTV PAM which is less restrictive than the canonical TTTV PAM of LbCas12a and AsCas12a. To optimize Mb3Cas12a, we develop an efficient single transcription unit (STU) system by refining the linker between Mb3Cas12a and CRISPR RNA (crRNA), nuclear localization signal (NLS), and direct repeat (DR). This optimized system enables precise genome editing in rice, particularly for fine‐tuning target gene expression by editing promoter regions. Further, we introduced Arginine (R) substitutions at Aspartic acid (D) 172, Asparagine (N) 573, and Lysine (K) 579 of Mb3Cas12a, creating two temperature‐tolerant variants: Mb3Cas12a‐R (D172R) and Mb3Cas12a‐RRR (D172R/N573R/K579R). These variants demonstrate significantly improved editing efficiency at lower temperatures (22 °C and 28 °C) in rice cells, with Mb3Cas12a‐RRR showing the best performance. We extend this approach by developing efficient Mb3Cas12a‐RRR STU systems in maize and tomato, achieving biallelic mutants targeting single or multiple genes in T₀lines cultivated at 28 °C and 25 °C, respectively. This study significantly expands Cas12a's targeting capabilities in plant genome editing, providing valuable tools for future research and practical applications. 

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