2. Academic Validation
  3. Genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screening in Bombyx mori reveals the toxicological mechanisms of environmental pollutants, fluoride and cadmium

Genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screening in Bombyx mori reveals the toxicological mechanisms of environmental pollutants, fluoride and cadmium

  • J Hazard Mater. 2021 May 15;410:124666. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124666.
Yue Liu 1,  Jiasong Chang 1,  Chengfei Yang 2,  Tong Zhang 1,  Xiaoxu Chen 1,  Run Shi 1,  Yan Liang 1,  Qingyou Xia 3,  Sanyuan Ma 4
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Biological Science Research Center, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Chongqing Engineering and Technology Research Center for Novel Silk Materials, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory of Sericulture, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China.
  • 2 Department of Urology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400037, China.
  • 3 State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Biological Science Research Center, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Chongqing Engineering and Technology Research Center for Novel Silk Materials, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory of Sericulture, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 4 State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Biological Science Research Center, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Chongqing Engineering and Technology Research Center for Novel Silk Materials, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China; Chongqing Key Laboratory of Sericulture, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 33279320 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124666
Abstract

Fluoride and cadmium, two typical environmental pollutants, have been extensively existed in the ecosystem and severely injured various organisms including humans. To explore the toxicological properties and the toxicological mechanism of fluoride and cadmium in silkworm, we perform a CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) -based functional genomic screen, which can directly measure the genetic requirement of genes in response to the pollutants. Our screen identifies 751 NaF-resistance genes, 753 NaF-sensitive genes, 757 CdCl2-resistance genes, and 725 CdCl2-sensitive genes. The top-ranked resistant genes are experimentally verified and the results show that their loss conferred resistance to fluoride or cadmium. Functional analysis of the resistant- and sensitive-genes demonstrates enrichment of multiple signaling pathways, among which the MAPK signaling pathway and DNA damage and repair are both required for fluoride- or cadmium-induced cell death, whereas the Toll and Imd signaling pathway and Autophagy are fluoride- or cadmium-specific. Moreover, we confirm that these pathways are truly involved in the toxicological mechanism in both cultured cells and individual tissues. Our results supply potential targets for rescuing the biohazards of fluoride and cadmium in silkworm, and reveal the feasible toxicological mechanism, which highlights the role of functional genomic screens in elucidating the toxicity mechanisms of environmental pollutants.

Keywords

CRISPR; Cadmium; Fluoride; Genomic screening; Silkworm; Toxicological mechanism.

Figures
Products
Inhibitors & Agonists
Other Products