Gene Editing in Vanessa cardui

The Vanessa cardui belongs to the Nymphalidae family of Lepidoptera. It is distributed on all continents except Antarctica and South America and is probably one of the world's most widely distributed butterfly species. Vanessa cardui is a fully metamorphic insect, passing through the stages of egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Adult butterflies nectar on various plants, especially those in the Asteraceae family. Because of the ease of rearing, it is often used as a textbook for learning about the life history of butterflies.

Our Services for Gene Editing in Vanessa cardui

Vanessa cardui has orange and brown on the back of her wings, making an excellent model for studying color pattern formation. Using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, Lifeasible can help you understand the developmental genetic mechanisms underlying the formation of wing patterns and can provide insight into the evolution of adaptive traits such as predator avoidance and mate attraction in Vanessa cardui.

Editable genes	Relevant traits exhibited after editing
Ddc, pale, ebony, black, yellow, yellow-d, yellow-h2, yellow-h3	Changing melanin pigmentation by knockout. Melanins and ommochromes, the pigment types characteristic of the significant butterfly family Nymphalidae, are diverse and abundant in this species.
Abd-B	Formation of extra prolegs by knockout.
optix	This gene controls the various colors on a butterfly's wings.
WntA	This gene plays a crucial role in forming the pattern of butterfly wings. After knocking out the WntA gene using gene editing, the centrosymmetric stripes on Vanessa cardui's wings disappeared.
spineless	Altered color vision.

Advantages

Targeted knockouts or other manipulations can be performed on various genes to help you obtain more mutant traits.
For editing needs such as point mutation and allele identification. We will locate the target site more precisely, with a tighter nucleotide resolution.
We further improve the efficiency of Vanessa cardui gene editing by trying smaller alternative Cas9 enzymes.
Using the CRISPR/Cas9 system to target genes in the genome has a similar effect to natural or induced mutations, resulting in heritable mutant lines with no transgenic traces on the genome.

Applications

Community and biodiversity studies.
Individual behavior, migration, and evolutionary studies.
Functional verification of critical genes.
Development of new varieties.

Lepidoptera insects are rich in species, have extensive interspecific hybridization, and have diverse wing patterns, making them a classic system for studying adaptive evolution. With CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology, Lifeasible can help you develop more possibilities for Vanessa cardui wing patterns and further explore the mysteries of its evolution. Please feel free to contact us to develop an editing system for your essential genes.

For research or industrial raw materials, not for personal medical use!

Services

Online Inquiry