Genome Editing of the Ascidian Ciona intestinalis with TALE Nuclease

The ascidian Ciona intestinalis is an important model animal for studying developmental mechanisms for constructing the chordate body. Although molecular and embryological techniques for manipulating Ciona genes were developed a long time ago, recent achievements of genome editing in this animal have innovated functional analyses of genes in Ciona. Particularly, knockout of genes in the G0 generation coupled with tissue-specific expression of TALENs enables us to rapidly address gene functions that were difficult using previous methods.