CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutation reveals Pax6 is essential for development of the compound eye in Decapoda Exopalaemon carinicauda.

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutation reveals Pax6 is essential for development of the compound eye in Decapoda Exopalaemon carinicauda.
Dev Biol. 2020 Jul 20;:
Authors: Gao Y, Zhang X, Zhang X, Yuan J, Xiang J, Li F
Abstract
The compound eye in crustaceans is a main eye type in the animal kingdom, knowledge about the mechanism to determine the development of compound eye is very limited. Paired box protein 6 (Pax6) is generally regarded as a master regulator for eye development. In the present study, a genome-based analysis of the Pax6 gene in the ridge tail white prawn Exopalaemon carinicauda was performed and two members of Pax6 homologs, named Ec-Eyeless (EcEy) and Ec-Twin of eyeless (EcToy) were identified. To understand the function of these two homologs of Pax6 gene in the prawn, the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technique was applied to generate EcEy and EcToy knock-out (KO) prawns and their phenotypes were analyzed. The surviving EcEy-KO embryos and larvae exhibited severe abnormal eye morphology, suggesting that EcEy is necessary for the compound eye development in prawn, while no mutant phenotype was found in EcToy-KO individuals. These findings highlighted the conservative role of Pax6 gene in the compound eye formation, and the functional differentiation between EcEy and EcToy gene may reveal a novel regulating mechanism of Pax6 on the compound eye development in the decapods. These data will provide important information for under...

Source: Developmental Biology - July 19, 2020 Category: Biology Authors: Gao Y, Zhang X, Zhang X, Yuan J, Xiang J, Li F Tags: Dev Biol Source Type: research