Chemically induced dislocation and mutation of essential cytoskeletal proteins: A case study focusing on Coronin-A

Abstract

Actin is one of the most highly conserved proteins--the actin cytoskeleton or actin-like structures are found in all kingdoms of life. In this work, Coronin-A, a central player involved in actin dynamics, is considered as an example to compare the effect of four mutation strategies on its function in Dictyostelium discoideum. Two distinct genetic knockout methods (selection-linked integration and classical gene disruption), RNAi knockdown, and sudden loss-of-function generated by chemically induced dislocation (CID) are compared and the cell lines are characterized according to actin dependent processes: appearance, development, and motility. These phenotypic features are affected to different degrees in the mutant cell lines, providing a basis to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. This comparative study highlights the advantages of the newly introduced selection-linked integration method to knock out genes over commonly used gene disruption, and for expressing a CID-based knock-sideways system under the native promotor of the protein of interest.