In vivo DNA methylation editing in zebrafish

Fang Liang; Zijiong Dong; Jianmin Ye; Wei Hu; Ramji Kumar Bhandari; Kangsen Mai; Xuegeng Wang

doi:10.1080/15592294.2023.2192326

In vivo DNA methylation editing in zebrafish

Epigenetics. 2023 Dec;18(1):2192326. doi: 10.1080/15592294.2023.2192326.

Authors

Fang Liang¹, Zijiong Dong¹, Jianmin Ye¹, Wei Hu², Ramji Kumar Bhandari³, Kangsen Mai¹, Xuegeng Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Modern Aquaculture Science and Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Healthy and Safe Aquaculture, College of Life Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, P. R. China.
³ Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA.

Abstract

The CRISPR/dCas9-based epigenome editing technique has driven much attention. Fused with a catalytic domain from Dnmt or Tet protein, the CRISPR/dCas9-DnmtCD or -TetCD systems possess the targeted DNA methylation editing ability and have established a series of in vitro and in vivo disease models. However, no publication has been reported on zebrafish (Danio rerio), an important animal model in biomedicine. The present study demonstrated that CRISPR/dCas9-Dnmt7 and -Tet2 catalytic domain fusions could site-specifically edit genomic DNA methylation in vivo in zebrafish and may serve as an efficient toolkit for DNA methylation editing in the zebrafish model.

Keywords: CRISPR/dCas9; DNA methylation editing; Dnmt7; Tet2; Zebrafish.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
CRISPR-Cas Systems*
DNA Methylation*
Epigenome
Gene Editing / methods
Zebrafish / genetics

Grants and funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [22176066]; State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology [2021FB03]