Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9-mediated kif15 mutations accelerate axonal outgrowth during neuronal development and regeneration in zebrafish
Zhangji Dong, Shuwen Wu, Chenwen Zhu, Xueting Wang, Yuanyuan Li, Xu Chen, Dong Liu, Liang Qiang, Peter W Baas and Mei Liu
Animals CRISPR-Cas Systems Kinesin - genetics Motor Neurons - cytology Motor Neurons - metabolism Motor Neurons - physiology Mutation Nerve Regeneration Neuronal Outgrowth Zebrafish Zebrafish Proteins - genetics
KIF15, the vertebrate kinesin-12, is best known as a mitotic motor protein, but continues to be expressed in neurons. Like KIF11 (the vertebrate kinesin-5), KIF15 interacts with microtubules in the axon to limit their sliding relative to one another. Unlike KIF11, KIF15 also regulates interactions between microtubules and actin filaments at sites of axonal branch formation and in growth cones. Our original work on these motors was done on cultured rat neurons, but we are now using zebrafish to extend these studies to an in vivo model. We previously studied kif15 in zebrafish by injecting splice-blocking morpholinos injected into embryos. Consistent with the cell culture work, these studies demonstrated that axons grow faster and longer when KIF15 levels are reduced. In the present study, we applied CRISPR/Cas9-based knockout technology to create kif15 mutants and labeled neurons with Tg(mnx1:GFP) transgene or transient expression of elavl3:EGFP-alpha tubulin. We then compared by live imaging the homozygotic, heterozygotic mutants to their wildtype siblings to ascertain the effects of depletion of kif15 during Caudal primary motor neuron and Rohon-Beard (R-B) sensory neuron development. The results showed, compared to the kif15 wildtype, the number of branches was reduced while axon outgrowth was accelerated in kif15 homozygotic and heterozygotic mutants. In R-B sensory neurons, after laser irradiation, injured axons with loss of kif15 displayed significantly greater regenerative velocity. Given these results and the fact that kif15 drugs are currently under development, we posit kif15 as a novel target for therapeutically augmenting regeneration of injured axons.
Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9-mediated kif15 mutations accelerate axonal outgrowth during neuronal development and regeneration in zebrafish
Creators
Zhangji Dong - Nantong University
Shuwen Wu - Nantong University
Chenwen Zhu - Nantong University
Xueting Wang - Nantong University
Yuanyuan Li - Nantong University
Xu Chen - Nantong University
Dong Liu - Nantong University
Liang Qiang - Drexel University
Peter W Baas - Drexel University
Mei Liu - Nantong University
Publication Details
Traffic (Copenhagen, Denmark), v 20(1), pp 71-81
Publisher
Wiley
Grant note
R01 NS028785 / NINDS NIH HHS
Resource Type
Journal article
Language
English
Academic Unit
Neurobiology and Anatomy
Web of Science ID
WOS:000453372000005
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85057895791
Other Identifier
991019168156004721
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