Efficient TALEN construction for Bombyx mori gene targeting

PLoS One. 2013 Sep 18;8(9):e73458. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073458. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Engineered nucleases are artificial enzymes able to introduce double stranded breaks at desired genomic locations. The double stranded breaks start the error-prone repair process of non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ), which eventually leads to the induction of mutations at target sites. We showed earlier that ZFNs and TALENs are able to induce NHEJ mutations in the B. mori genome. In order to optimize our mutagenesis protocol, we modified one of the reported truncated TALEN scaffolds and optimized it for use in the B. mori embryo. We also established a novel B. mori somatic cell assay suitable for the preselection of highly efficient TALENs directly in the B. mori model system. We compared the efficiency of several TALEN pairs based on three different frameworks using the BmBLOS2 gene. The new active TALENs show one order of magnitude higher efficiency than those we used previously. We confirmed the utility of our improved protocol by mutagenesis of the autosomal gene, red egg (Bm-re) and showed that it allows obtaining homozygous mutants in G1. Our procedure minimizes the chance of failure in B. mori gene targeting experiments.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Base Sequence
  • Bombyx / embryology
  • Bombyx / genetics*
  • DNA End-Joining Repair
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian
  • Endonucleases / genetics*
  • Gene Targeting / methods*
  • Genetic Engineering / methods*
  • Genome, Insect*
  • Homozygote
  • Larva / genetics
  • Larva / growth & development
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Mutagenesis, Insertional
  • Plant Proteins / genetics*
  • Transcription, Genetic

Substances

  • Plant Proteins
  • Endonucleases

Grants and funding

This research was supported by KAKENHI Grant Number 23580083 from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and grant P305/10/2406 from the Grant Agency of Czech Republic. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.