Heritable Cas9-induced nonhomologous recombination in C. elegans

Identification of the genetic basis of phenotypic variation within species remains challenging. In species with low recombination rates, such as Caenorhabditis elegans , genomic regions linked to a phenotype of interest by genetic mapping studies are often large, making it difficult to identify the specific genes and DNA sequence variants that underlie phenotypic differences. Here, we introduce a method that enables researchers to induce heritable targeted recombination in C. elegans with Cas9. We demonstrate that high rates of targeted nonhomologous recombination can be induced by Cas9 in a genomic region in which naturally occurring meiotic recombination events are exceedingly rare. We anticipate that Cas9-induced nonhomologous recombination (CINR) will greatly facilitate high-resolution genetic mapping in this species.