Reduced thermal tolerance in a coral carrying CRISPR-induced mutations in the gene for a heat-shock transcription factor.

ABSTRACT: Reef-building corals are keystone species that are threatened by anthropogenic stresses including climate change. To investigate corals' responses to stress and other aspects of their biology, numerous genomic and transcriptomic studies have been performed, generating many hypotheses about the roles of particular genes and molecular pathways. However, it has not generally been possible to test these hypotheses rigorously because of the lack of genetic tools for corals or closely related cnidarians. CRISPR technology seems likely to alleviate this problem. Indeed, we show here that microinjection of single-guide RNA/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complexes into fertilized eggs of the coral Acropora millepora can produce a sufficiently high frequency of mutations to detect a clear phenotype i

SUBMITTER: Cleves PA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7682433 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature