Endogenous GFP tagging in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana

Abstract

The regulated abundance and spatial distribution of proteins determines cellular structure and function. The discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP) and fusing it to a target protein to determine subcellular localization revolutionized cell biology. Most localization studies involve introducing additional copies of a target gene genetically fused to GFP and under the control of a constitutive promoter, resulting in the expression of the GFP-fusion protein at non-native levels. Here we have developed a single vector CRISPR/Cas9 guided GFP knock-in strategy in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana. This enables precise and scarless knock-in of GFP at the endogenous genomic location to create GFP fusion proteins under their native cis and trans regulatory elements with knock-in efficiencies of over 50%. We show that a previously uncharacterized bestrophin-like protein localizes to the CO2-fixing pyrenoid and demonstrate that by measuring GFP fluorescence we can track relative protein abundance in response to environmental change. To enable endogenous tagging, we developed a Golden Gate Molecular Cloning system for the rapid assembly of episomes for transformation into Thalassiosira pseudonana via bacterial conjugation. In addition, this versatile toolbox enables CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, provides a broad range of validated fluorophores and enables future large-scale functional studies in diatoms. Significance statementFluorescent protein (FP) tagging is a widely utilized technique for understanding the spatial distribution of proteins. However, introducing extra gene copies under constitutive promoters that randomly integrate into the genome can result in non-biologically relevant expression levels, unwanted genomic mutations and localization artefacts. To overcome this, we developed a novel single vector system capable of CRISPR/Cas9-guided endogenous GFP tagging in a globally important model diatom. This allows scarless GFP knock-in at precise genomic locations resulting in GFP fusions regulated by native promoters/terminators, which facilitates accurate localization and determination of relative protein abundance. Moreover, the developed modular cloning framework is user-friendly and opens the door for high throughput large-scale studies, including FP tagging, knock-out, and knock-in.