Engineering new balancer chromosomes in C. elegans via CRISPR/Cas9.

Balancer chromosomes are convenient tools used to maintain lethal mutations in heterozygotes. We established a method for engineering new balancers in C. elegans by using the CRISPR/Cas9 system in a non-homologous end-joining mutant. Our studies will make it easier for researchers to maintain lethal mutations and should provide a path for the development of a system that generates rearrangements at specific sites of interest to model and analyse the mechanisms of action of genes.