Recent advances with the type II clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) system promise an improved approach to genome editing. However, the applicability and efficiency of this system in model organisms, such as zebrafish, are little studied. Here, we report that RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease efficiently facilitates genome editing in both mammalian cells and zebrafish embryos in a simple and robust manner. Over 35% of site-specific somatic mutations were found when specific Cas/gRNA was used to target either etsrp, gata4 or gata5 in zebrafish embryos in vivo. The Cas9/gRNA efficiently induced biallelic conversion of etsrp or gata5 in the resulting somatic cells, recapitulating their respective vessel phenotypes in etsrpy11 mutant embryos or cardia bifida phenotypes in fautm236a mutant embryos. Finally, we successfully achieved site-specific insertion of mloxP sequence induced by Cas9/gRNA system in zebrafish embryos. These results demonstrate that the Cas9/gRNA system has the potential of becoming a simple, robust and efficient reverse genetic tool for zebrafish and other model organisms. Together with other genome-engineering technologies, the Cas9 system is promising for applications in biology, agriculture, environmental studies and medicine.

We have used density functional calculations on model peptides to study conformational effects on (15)N, (13)C alpha, (13)C beta, and (13)C' chemical shifts, associated with hydrogen bonding, backbone conformation, and side-chain orientation. The results show a significant dependence on the backbone torsion angles of the nearest three residues. Contributions to (15)N chemical shifts from hydrogen bonding (up to 8 ppm), backbone conformation (up to 13 ppm), side-chain orientation and neighborhood residue effects (up to 22 ppm) are significant, and a unified theory will be required to account for their behavior in proteins. In contrast to this, the dependence on sequence and hydrogen bonding is much less for (13)C alpha and (13)C beta chemical shifts (<0.5 ppm), and moderate for carbonyl carbon shifts (<2 ppm). The effects of side-chain orientation are mainly limited to the residue itself for both nitrogen and carbon, but the chi(1) effect is also significant for the nitrogen shift of the following residue and for the (13)C' shift of the preceding residue. The calculated results are used, in conjunction with an additive model of chemical shift contributions, to create an algorithm for prediction of (15)N and (13)C shifts in proteins from their structure; this includes a model to extrapolate results to regions of torsion angle space that have not been explicitly studied by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Crystal structures of 20 proteins with measured shifts have been used to test the prediction scheme. Root mean square deviations between calculated and experimental shifts 2.71, 1.22, 1.31, and 1.28 ppm for N, C alpha, C beta, and C', respectively. This prediction algorithm should be helpful in NMR assignment, crystal and solution structure comparison, and structure refinement.

A database of peptide chemical shifts, computed at the density functional level, has been used to develop an algorithm for prediction of 15N and 13C shifts in proteins from their structure; the method is incorporated into a program called SHIFTS (version 4.0). The database was built from the calculated chemical shift patterns of 1335 peptides whose backbone torsion angles are limited to areas of the Ramachandran map around helical and sheet configurations. For each tripeptide in these regions of regular secondary structure (which constitute about 40% of residues in globular proteins) SHIFTS also consults the database for information about sidechain torsion angle effects for the residue of interest and for the preceding residue, and estimates hydrogen bonding effects through an empirical formula that is also based on density functional calculations on peptides. The program optionally searches for alternate side-chain torsion angles that could significantly improve agreement between calculated and observed shifts. The application of the program on 20 proteins shows good consistency with experimental data, with correlation coefficients of 0.92, 0.98, 0.99 and 0.90 and r.m.s. deviations of 1.94, 0.97, 1.05, and 1.08 ppm for 15N, 13Calpha, 13Cbeta and 13C', respectively. Reference shifts fit to protein data are in good agreement with 'random-coil' values derived from experimental measurements on peptides. This prediction algorithm should be helpful in NMR assignment, crystal and solution structure comparison, and structure refinement.

The blast resistance gene Pik-p, mapping to the Pik locus on the long arm of rice chromosome 11, was isolated by map-based in silico cloning. Four NBS-LRR genes are present in the target region of cv. Nipponbare, and a presence/absence analysis in the Pik-p carrier cv. K60 excluded two of these as candidates for Pik-p. The other two candidates (KP3 and KP4) were expressed in cv. K60. A loss-of-function experiment by RNAi showed that both KP3 and KP4 are required for Pik-p function, while a gain-of-function experiment by complementation test revealed that neither KP3 nor KP4 on their own can impart resistance, but that resistance was expressed when both were introduced simultaneously. Both Pikp-1 (KP3) and Pikp-2 (KP4) encode coiled-coil NBS-LRR proteins and share, respectively, 95 and 99% peptide identity with the two alleles, Pikm1-TS and Pikm2-TS. The Pikp-1 and Pikp-2 sequences share only limited homology. Their sequence allowed Pik-p to be distinguished from Pik, Pik-s, Pik-m and Pik-h. Both Pikp-1 and Pikp-2 were constitutively expressed in cv. K60 and only marginally induced by blast infection.