CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome editing of the parasitic nematode Nippostrongylus brasiliensis

Parasitic nematodes are a major burden for human populations and agriculture, particularly in the developing world. Advances in treatment require better understanding of gene function, but so far approaches to perform functional genomics in parasitic nematodes have been largely unsuccessful. We show CRISPR-Cas9 mediated gene editing in the parasitic nematode N. brasiliensis. We edited the endogenous DNAseII locus to insert a non-functional copy and showed that this reduced expression of DNAseII. High throughput sequencing, presented here of the edited locus in N. brasiliensis genomic DNA confirmed that the endogenous locus was replaced by the non-functional copy with almost 100% accuracy.