文昌鱼隶属脊索动物门头索动物亚门,是无脊椎动物到脊椎动物的过渡类群,其躯体结构简单,是研究胚胎发育的理想材料。本文以文昌鱼为实验对象,利用TALEN敲除技术对Hedgehog(Hh)基因在胚胎发育中的功能进行了研究。在文昌鱼Hh基因翻译起始位点下游附近选取TALEN目标位点,根据此序列组装相应TALEN重组质粒,体外合成mRNA,向未受精卵注射mRNA后,经体外受精获得F0代胚胎。效率分析显示,靶向该基因的TALEN mRNA可导致F0代胚胎在相应基因组区域发生突变的比例为34%。对部分F0个体所产配子筛查发现,TALEN引起的突变可进入配子,将其中1尾突变类型为8 bp缺失的雄性个体与野生型雌性配对获得F1群体,对F1群体逐尾筛查,从中获得多尾携带8 bp缺失的杂合子;这些杂合子相互配对所产的F2代胚胎,其中约有1/4个体在幼体早期出现躯体前端和尾向下弯曲、脊索前端腹侧的中胚层组织发育不全,不能开口等;随着幼体生长发育,躯体前端和尾部进一步卷曲,口部仍未形成,左右各形成一个口前窝,内柱和鳃裂位于躯体腹侧,最终因无口摄食而死亡。基因型分析发现,上述畸形胚胎均为Hh纯合突变体,其与杂合子及野生型比例分布符合孟德尔遗传定律,表明这些发育畸型的特征与Hh基因功能缺失有关。
The amphioxus is a promising animal model for evolutionary-developmental studies due to its key position on the animal phylogenetic tree. In the present study, we reported a genetically modified amphioxus strain on the Hedgehog (Hh) gene locus using the TALEN method. The result showed that our TALEN pair injection could bring about 34% mutations in the amphioxus Hh coding region. Further analysis on the F0 gametic DNA revealed that the mutations had entered into gametes. So, we paired one F0 male carrying an 8 bp deletion with a wild-type (WT) female, and carefully nursed the F1 embryos up to adulthood. We then screened F1 individually via analyzing their genomic DNA from a tiny tail tip, and obtained eight heterozygous mutants from the F1 offspring. Moreover, our observation on the F2 embryos generated by mating F1 mutants also revealed that about 25% of early larvae developed aberrantly with head and tail curving ventrally, agenesis of the mesoblastic tissue under their anterior notochord, and no mouth opening. With the larva growth, deformities (such as twist of head and tail, mouth absent, ventrally localized endostyle and gill slits) became more severe, and eventually those malformed larvae died due to no food intake. Genetic analysis showed that all these deformed embryos were homozygous mutants and the ratio of Hh hetorozygotes vs WT agreed with Mondel's law. WT amphioxus larvae are asymmetric with the mouth on the left and gill slits on the right side. However, the homozygous mutant larvae became left-right symmetric with the gill slits on the ventral side, indicating a conserved role of Hedgehog signaling in establishing the left-right embryonic axis.
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