Aquatic Model Organisms in Neurosciences: The Genome-Editing Revolution

Excerpt

The use of aquatic model organisms has been greatly diversified in laboratories. Zebrafish is the most advanced aquatic species for the use of Crispr-Cas9 in laboratories. Because of the simplicity and broad applicability of this later system, knock-out is now efficiently performed at medium scale. Forward genetics in zebrafish can now be performed by CRISPR-based F0 screening using high speed and high content phenotyping for example by confocal imaging. As zebrafish, marine model organisms have the prominent advantage to be transparent, all the more at young stages (embryos and larvae) or when fixed samples are cleared by novel methods. The Cripsr-Cas9 system is routinely used in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis. It also starts to be used in many other marine models, such as the medusa Clythia hemispherica. We provide at the end of this review a list of aquatic model species and some examples of questions on the origin of our nervous system that can be coped with these models, where the possibility to perform genome editing would constitute a major advance.