Generation of Myostatin Gene-Edited Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) via Zygote Injection of CRISPR/Cas9 System.

Citation:
Khalil, K., Elayat M., Khalifa E., Daghash S., Elaswad A., Miller M., et al. (2017).  Generation of Myostatin Gene-Edited Channel Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) via Zygote Injection of CRISPR/Cas9 System.. Scientific reports. 7(1), 7301.

Abstract:

The myostatin (MSTN) gene is important because of its role in regulation of skeletal muscle growth in all vertebrates. In this study, CRISPR/Cas9 was utilized to successfully target the channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, muscle suppressor gene MSTN. CRISPR/Cas9 induced high rates (88-100%) of mutagenesis in the target protein-encoding sites of MSTN. MSTN-edited fry had more muscle cells (p < 0.001) than controls, and the mean body weight of gene-edited fry increased by 29.7%. The nucleic acid alignment of the mutated sequences against the wild-type sequence revealed multiple insertions and deletions. These results demonstrate that CRISPR/Cas9 is a highly efficient tool for editing the channel catfish genome, and opens ways for facilitating channel catfish genetic enhancement and functional genomics. This approach may produce growth-enhanced channel catfish and increase productivity.