Establishment of a baculovirus-inducible CRISPR/Cas9 system for antiviral research in transgenic silkworms

Zhanqi Dong, Liang Huang, Feifan Dong, Zhigang Hu, Qi Qin, Jiangqiong Long, Mingya Cao, Peng Chen, Cheng Lu, Min-Hui Pan

The CRISPR/Cas9 system is a powerful genetic engineering technique that has been widely used in gene therapy, as well as in the development of novel antimicrobials and transgenic insects. However, several challenges, including the lack of effective host target genes and the off-target effects, limit the application of CRISPR/Cas9 in insects. To mitigate these difficulties, we established a highly efficient virus-inducible CRISPR/Cas9 system in transgenic silkworms. This system includes the baculovirus-inducible promoter 39K, which directs transcription of the gene encoding, the Cas9 protein, and the U6 promoter which targets the sgATAD3A site of the ATPase family AAA domain-containing protein 3 (ATAD3A) gene. The double-positive transgenic line sgATAD3A×39K-Cas9 (ATAD3A-KO) was obtained by hybridization; antiviral activity in this hybrid transgenic line is induced only after Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) infection. The BmNPV-inducible system significantly reduced off-target effects and did not affect the economically important characteristics of the transgenic silkworms. Most importantly, this novel system efficiently and consistently edited target genes, inhibiting BmNPV replication after the transgenic silkworms were inoculated with occlusion bodies (OBs). The suppression of BmNPV by the virus-inducible system was comparable to that of the stably expressed CRISPR/Cas9 system. Therefore, we successfully established a highly efficient BmNPV-inducible ATAD3A-KO transgenic silkworm line, with improved gene targeting specificity and antiviral efficiency. Our study thereby provides insights into the treatment of infectious diseases and into the control of insect pests.