Person:

Yeh, Jing-Ruey

In vivo chemical screening is a broadly applicable approach not only for dissecting genetic pathways governing hematopoiesis and hematological diseases, but also for finding critical components in those pathways that may be pharmacologically modulated. Both high-throughput chemical screening and facile detection of blood-cell-related phenotypes are feasible in embryonic/larval zebrafish. Two recent studies utilizing phenotypic chemical screens in zebrafish have identified several compounds that promote hematopoietic stem cell formation and reverse the hematopoietic phenotypes of a leukemia oncogene, respectively. These studies illustrate efficient drug discovery processes in zebrafish and reveal novel biological roles of prostaglandin E2 in hematopoietic and leukemia stem cells. Furthermore, the compounds discovered in zebrafish screens have become promising therapeutic candidates against leukemia and included in a clinical trial for enhancing hematopoietic stem cells during hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) are powerful new research tools that enable targeted gene disruption in a wide variety of model organisms. Recent work has shown that TALENs can induce mutations in endogenous zebrafish genes, but to date only four genes have been altered, and larger-scale tests of the success rate, mutation efficiencies and germline transmission rates have not been described. Here, we constructed homodimeric TALENs to 10 different targets in various endogenous zebrafish genes and found that 7 nuclease pairs induced targeted indel mutations with high efficiencies ranging from 2 to 76%. We also tested obligate heterodimeric TALENs and found that these nucleases induce mutations with comparable or higher frequencies and have better toxicity profiles than their homodimeric counterparts. Importantly, mutations induced by both homodimeric and heterodimeric TALENs are passed efficiently through the germline, in some cases reaching 100% transmission. For one target gene sequence, we observed substantially reduced mutagenesis efficiency for a variant site bearing two mismatched nucleotides, raising the possibility that TALENs might be used to perform allele-specific gene disruption. Our results suggest that construction of one to two heterodimeric TALEN pairs for any given gene will, in most cases, enable researchers to rapidly generate knockout zebrafish.

Humans and many animals exhibit freezing behavior in response to threatening stimuli. In humans, inappropriate threat responses are fundamental characteristics of several mental illnesses. To identify small molecules that modulate threat responses, we developed a high-throughput behavioral assay in zebrafish (Danio rerio) and characterized the effects of 10,000 compounds on freezing behavior. We found three classes of compounds that switch the threat response from freezing to escape-like behavior. We then screened these for binding activity across 45 candidate targets. Using target profile clustering we implicated the sigma-1 receptor in the mechanism of behavioral switching and confirmed that known sigma-1 ligands also disrupt freezing behavior. Furthermore, mutation of the sigma-1 gene prevented the behavioral effect of escape-inducing compounds. The compound ‘finazine’ potently bound mammalian sigma-1 and altered rodent threat response behavior. Thus, pharmacological and genetic interrogation of the freezing response revealed sigma-1 as a mediator of vertebrate threat responses.

We have previously reported a simple and customizable CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease (RGN) system that can be used to efficiently and robustly introduce somatic indel mutations in endogenous zebrafish genes. Here we demonstrate that RGN-induced mutations are heritable, with efficiencies of germline transmission reaching as high as 100%. In addition, we extend the power of the RGN system by showing that these nucleases can be used with single-stranded oligodeoxynucleotides (ssODNs) to create precise intended sequence modifications, including single nucleotide substitutions. Finally, we describe and validate simple strategies that improve the targeting range of RGNs from 1 in every 128 basepairs (bps) of random DNA sequence to 1 in every 8 bps. Together, these advances expand the utility of the CRISPR-Cas system in the zebrafish beyond somatic indel formation to heritable and precise genome modifications.

Background: Customized zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) form the basis of a broadly applicable tool for highly efficient genome modification. ZFNs are artificial restriction endonucleases consisting of a non-specific nuclease domain fused to a zinc finger array which can be engineered to recognize specific DNA sequences of interest. Recent proof-of-principle experiments have shown that targeted knockout mutations can be efficiently generated in endogenous zebrafish genes via non-homologous end-joining-mediated repair of ZFN-induced DNA double-stranded breaks. The Zinc Finger Consortium, a group of academic laboratories committed to the development of engineered zinc finger technology, recently described the first rapid, highly effective, and publicly available method for engineering zinc finger arrays. The Consortium has previously used this new method (known as OPEN for Oligomerized Pool ENgineering) to generate high quality ZFN pairs that function in human and plant cells. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we show that OPEN can also be used to generate ZFNs that function efficiently in zebrafish. Using OPEN, we successfully engineered ZFN pairs for five endogenous zebrafish genes: tfr2, dopamine transporter, telomerase, hif1aa, and gridlock. Each of these ZFN pairs induces targeted insertions and deletions with high efficiency at its endogenous gene target in somatic zebrafish cells. In addition, these mutations are transmitted through the germline with sufficiently high frequency such that only a small number of fish need to be screened to identify founders. Finally, in silico analysis demonstrates that one or more potential OPEN ZFN sites can be found within the first three coding exons of more than 25,000 different endogenous zebrafish gene transcripts. Conclusions and Significance: In summary, our study nearly triples the total number of endogenous zebrafish genes successfully modified using ZFNs (from three to eight) and suggests that OPEN provides a reliable method for introducing targeted mutations in nearly any zebrafish gene of interest.

Although CRISPR-Cas9 nucleases are widely used for genome editing1, 2, the range of sequences that Cas9 can recognize is constrained by the need for a specific protospacer adjacent motif (PAM)3–6. As a result, it can often be difficult to target double-stranded breaks (DSBs) with the precision that is necessary for various genome editing applications. The ability to engineer Cas9 derivatives with purposefully altered PAM specificities would address this limitation. Here we show that the commonly used Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9) can be modified to recognize alternative PAM sequences using structural information, bacterial selection-based directed evolution, and combinatorial design. These altered PAM specificity variants enable robust editing of endogenous gene sites in zebrafish and human cells not currently targetable by wild-type SpCas9, and their genome-wide specificities are comparable to wild-type SpCas9 as judged by GUIDE-Seq analysis7. In addition, we identified and characterized another SpCas9 variant that exhibits improved specificity in human cells, possessing better discrimination against off-target sites with non-canonical NAG and NGA PAMs and/or mismatched spacers. We also found that two smaller-size Cas9 orthologues, Streptococcus thermophilus Cas9 (St1Cas9) and Staphylococcus aureus Cas9 (SaCas9), function efficiently in the bacterial selection systems and in human cells, suggesting that our engineering strategies could be extended to Cas9s from other species. Our findings provide broadly useful SpCas9 variants and, more importantly, establish the feasibility of engineering a wide range of Cas9s with altered and improved PAM specificities.