Generation of Cas9 transgenic zebrafish and their application in establishing an ERV-deficient animal model

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effect of endogenous Cas9 on genome editing efficiency in transgenic zebrafish. RESULTS: Here we have constructed a transgenic zebrafish strain that can be screened by pigment deficiency. Compared with the traditional CRISPR injection method, the transgenic zebrafish can improve the efficiency of genome editing significantly. At the same time, we first observed that the phenotype of vertebral malformation in early embryonic development of zebrafish after ZFERV knockout. CONCLUSIONS: The transgenic zebrafish with expressed Cas9, is more efficient in genome editing. And the results of ZFERV knockout indicated that ERV may affect the vertebral development by Notch1/Delta D signal pathway. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10529-018-2605-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.