Your non-model organism is going extinct

“There is no such thing as a non-model organism”
R. Behringer

This bold statement was announced less than a week into our Embryology course and has left a lasting impression on lecturers and students alike. At first it seemed like a sympathetic statement to the extensive and diverse systems us students were arriving from… “yeah, your work is relevant, don’t worry, people care about sturgeon skeletal patterns.” But as the course has moved forward it’s become increasingly apparent that it’s not the system that’s relevant but rather what questions we now have the ability to answer in that system. Why is this? What has changed in the recent years or in particular this year? ..it’s kind of a one word answer – CRISPR/Cas9.

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has revolutionized the way we can now design experiments for any system for which we can obtain genomic or transcript sequence. Want to know how many functional neural crest genes amphioxus has? Just spend less than an hour designing and ordering a few guide RNA oligo templates. You can be injecting in a few days. Want to test the function of dorsalizing genes only in the neural lineage of Xenopus? Inject the guide RNAs into the corresponding blastomeres. Also think about all the cell-autonomous questions you could address with expressing CRISPR/Cas9 mosaically. For almost every lecture and sweat-box discussion we have had in the past weeks I think at least one of us has come up with a CRISPR/Cas9 answer to a pending question or hypothesis in organisms spanning the tree of life….also we’re embryologists, we really like designing experiments that involve injecting things.

It’s not just the CRISPR/Cas9 system that has changed the prospects of embryology and development biology this year; it’s also the cheap and plentiful influx of genome sequences of these ‘non-model’ organisms. The technology and financial feasibility of sequencing whole genomes and transcriptomes has broken down the barriers for the genome targeting possibilities of CRISPR/Cas9. These genomes are broadening our perspectives and giving researchers the ability to step away from the traditional model organisms, with all their caveats and developmental exceptions, and address broader questions about the evolution of developmental mechanisms used across whole genera or clades.

We have also heard some really inspiring possibilities and probably the future of developmental biology research labs using multiple organisms. Bronner and Wallingford really hammered home the idea that working on just one traditional organism is going to be real lame, real soon. I’m ok with that…if it doesn’t work on the first one, move on to the next right?

I’ll end this with some inspiring quotes and advice from some of our Embryology lecturers this year:

“Humbling, educational, awe-inspiring…spiritual….that’s what it’s like to look at the worm” –Dave Sherwood
“Just nurture them and let them grow and cherish them” –Athula Wikramanayake
“It worked because you didn’t know it wouldn’t” – Nipam Patel
“The only two things you need to make this work are spinning the tubes and FAITH” –Nipam Patel
“As you become embryologists, you are going to see a lot of beautiful things, but they may not all be essential.” – Geraldine Seydoux
“You have to just buy into the dream (CRISPR/Cas9)” –Richard Behringer
“BMP forever means you are a belly forever… which is not so exciting” –Brigitte Galliot
“Know your blastopore from a hole in the ground” –Ray Keller
“We’re all walking mutants in one form or another” –Paul Trainor
“Axolotologist” –Elke Ober
“You can even get natural Double D’s “- John Q Henry
“All you need is Wnt” –Mark Q Martindale

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