Journal
INSECT BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Volume 139, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ibmb.2021.103652
Keywords
hsp23; CRISPR; Cas9; Fitness; Temperature tolerance; Heat hardening
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Under exposure to harmful environmental stresses, organisms exhibit a general stress response involving upregulation of heat shock proteins. This study explored the pleiotropic effects of the hsp23 gene in Drosophila melanogaster using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, showing that knockout of hsp23 gene can impact fitness and tolerance in flies.
Under exposure to harmful environmental stresses, organisms exhibit a general stress response involving upregulation of the expression of heat shock proteins (HSPs) which is thought to be adaptive. Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) are key components of this response, although shsp genes may have other essential roles in development. However, the upregulation of expression of a suite of genes under stress may not necessarily be evidence of an adaptive response to stress that involves those genes. To explore this issue, we used the CRISPR/ Cas9 system to investigate pleiotropic effects of the hsp23 gene in Drosophila melanogaster. Transgenic flies carrying a pCFD5 plasmid containing sgRNAs were created to generate a complete knockout of the hsp23 gene. The transgenic line lacking hsp23 showed an increased hatch rate and no major fitness costs under an intermediate temperature used for culturing the flies. In addition, hsp23 knockout affected tolerance to hot and cold temperature extremes but in opposing directions; knockout flies had reduced tolerance to cold, but increased tolerance to heat. Despite this, hsp23 expression (in wild type flies) was increased under both hot and cold conditions. The hsp23 gene was required for heat hardening at the pupal stage, but not at the 1st-instar larval stage, even though the gene was upregulated in wild type controls at that life stage. The phenotypic effects of hsp23 were not compensated for by expression changes in other shsps. Our study shows that the fitness consequences of an hsp gene knockout depends on environmental conditions, with potential fitness benefits of gene loss even under conditions when the gene is normally upregulated.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available