Myostatin knockout in bovine fetal fibroblasts by using TALEN

Myostatin (MSTN) can negatively regulate the growth and development of skeletal muscle, and mutations of bovine MSTN gene can cause a "double-muscle" feature. To knock out MSTN gene in bovine fetal fibroblast by transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and obtain MSTN knockout cell lines, we constructed one pair of MSTN-TALEN vector and transfected into bovine fetal fibroblast cells by PEI and electroporation. Sequencing results demonstrated that TALEN was available for MSTN knockout. T7 endonuclease 1 (T7E1) was used for the detection of mutation efficiency. The results indicated that knockout efficiency of electroporation transfection was 20.4%, and 10 MSTN(+/-) and MSTN(-/-) cell colonies were obtained via limiting dilution method. The deletion number of nucleotides ranged from 1 to 20, and some of them were frameshift mutation, which could provide the possibility in production of MSTN knockout cattle in the future.