Over the years, the study of gene function during development involved the implementation of sophisticated transgenic strategies to visualize how organisms change during their lifetime. These strategies are diverse and extremely useful and allowed the discovery of some of the fundamental mechanisms governing organism's development. Such strategies can be time-consuming, in some cases expensive, and require complex infrastructure. With the advent of the genome editing CRISPR-Cas9 RNA-guided DNA endonuclease system a tremendous progress has been achieved in manipulating diverse organisms and cell types. In recent years this system has contributed importantly to the design of novel experimental strategies to further understand developmental processes, to generate genetically modified animal models, and develop disease models. Here we highlight examples in which the genome editing CRISPR-Cas9 system has been employed to understand the mechanisms controlling embryonic development and disease.
Keywords: CRISPR-Cas6; Chromatin; DNA repair; Development; Disease; ESC; Genome editing; TALEN; ZFN; iPSC.