Advances in Anti-Diabetic Cognitive Dysfunction Effect of Erigeron Breviscapus (Vaniot) Hand-Mazz

Diabetic cognitive dysfunction (DCD) is the decline in memory, learning, and executive function caused by diabetes. Although its pathogenesis is unclear, molecular biologists have proposed various hypotheses, including insulin resistance, amyloid β hypothesis, tau protein hyperphosphorylation hypothesis, oxidative stress and neuroinflammation. DCD patients have no particular treatment options and current pharmacological regimens are suboptimal. In recent years, Chinese medicine research has shown that herbs with multi-component, multi-pathway and multi-target synergistic activities can prevent and treat DCD. Yunnan is home to the medicinal herb Erigeron breviscapus (Vant.) Hand-Mazz. (EBHM). Studies have shown that EBHM and its active components have a wide range of pharmacological effects and applications in cognitive disorders. EBHM’s anti-DCD properties have been seldom reviewed. Through a literature study, we were able to evaluate the likely pathophysiology of DCD, prescribe anti-DCD medication and better grasp EBHM’s therapeutic potential. EBHM’s pharmacological mechanism and active components for DCD treatment were also summarized

Systematic genome editing of the genes on zebrafish Chromosome 1 by CRISPR/Cas9

Genome editing by the well-established CRISPR/Cas9 technology has greatly facilitated our understanding of many biological processes. However, a complete whole-genome knockout for any species or model organism has rarely been achieved. Here, we performed a systematic knockout of all the genes (1333) on Chromosome 1 in zebrafish, successfully mutated 1029 genes, and generated 1039 germline-transmissible alleles corresponding to 636 genes. Meanwhile, by high-throughput bioinformatics analysis, we found that sequence features play pivotal roles in effective gRNA targeting at specific genes of interest, while the success rate of gene targeting positively correlates with GC content of the target sites. Moreover, we found that nearly one-fourth of all mutants are related to human diseases, and several representative CRISPR/Cas9-generated mutants are described here. Furthermore, we tried to identify the underlying mechanisms leading to distinct phenotypes between genetic mutants and antisense morpholino-mediated knockdown embryos. Altogether, this work has generated the first chromosome-wide collection of zebrafish genetic mutants by the CRISPR/Cas9 technology, which will serve as a valuable resource for the community, and our bioinformatics analysis also provides some useful guidance to design gene-specific gRNAs for successful gene editing