Single nucleotide replacement in the Atlantic salmon genome using CRISPR/Cas9 and asymmetrical oligonucleotide donors

• Published in: BMC Genomics
• Main Authors: Anne Hege Straume, Erik Kjærner-Semb, Kai Ove Skaftnesmo, Hilal Güralp, Simon Lillico, Anna Wargelius, Rolf Brudvik Edvardsen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2021
• Subjects: HDR; ODN; Gene editing; Knock-in; Aquaculture; New breeding technologies; Biotechnology; TP248.13-248.65; Genetics; QH426-470; Atlantic salmon
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-021-07823-8; https://doaj.org/article/de4d172cfe394feca90b2722376b76e6

Abstract Background New breeding technologies (NBT) using CRISPR/Cas9-induced homology directed repair (HDR) has the potential to expedite genetic improvement in aquaculture. The long generation time in Atlantic salmon makes breeding an unattractive solution to obtain homozygous mutants and improving the rates of perfect HDR in founder (F0) fish is thus required. Genome editing can represent small DNA changes down to single nucleotide replacements (SNR). This enables edits such as premature stop codons or single amino acid changes and may be used to obtain fish with traits favorable to aquaculture, e.g. disease resistance. A method for SNR has not yet been demonstrated in salmon. Results Using CRISPR/Cas9 and asymmetrical ODNs, we were able to perform precise SNR and introduce a premature stop codon in dnd in F0 salmon. Deep sequencing demonstrated up to 59.2% efficiency in single embryos. In addition, using the same asymmetrical ODN design, we inserted a FLAG element into slc45a2 and dnd, showing high individual perfect HDR efficiencies (up to 36.7 and 32.7%, respectively). Conclusions In this work, we demonstrate that precise SNR and knock-in (KI) can be performed in F0 salmon embryos using asymmetrical oligonucleotide (ODN) donors. We suggest that HDR-induced SNR can be applied as a powerful NBT, allowing efficient introgression of favorable alleles and bypassing challenges associated with traditional selective breeding.