Currently the importance of using alternative strategies for biodiversity conservation is emphasized and since the establishment of germplasm bank is an alternative to the conservation of endangered species. This is a technique of great importance for the maintenance of Brazilian fauna. Since the early70'sthere was a growing concern about the need to preserve essential genetic resources for food and agriculture, mainly for conservation of genetic material from farm animals. Thus was created the Brasilia Zoo, in July 2010, the first Germplasm Bank of Wild Animals in Latin America, as an alternative strategy for the conservation of threatened or endangered species, using both gametes and somatic cells and stem cells. Then we argue to create new banks or research networks among different regions with aimed to tissue preservation.

The mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) is a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) binding protein essential for the initiation of transcription and genome maintenance. Recently it was demonstrated that the primary role of TFAM is to maintain the integrity of mtDNA and that it is a key regulator of mtDNA copy number. It was also shown that TFAM plays a central role in the mtDNA stress-mediated inflammatory response. In our study, we proposed to evaluate the possibility of editing the TFAM gene by CRISPR/Cas9 technology in bovine fibroblasts, as TFAM regulates the replication specificity of mtDNA. We further attempted to maintain these cells in culture post edition in a medium supplemented with uridine and pyruvate to mimic Rho zero cells that are capable of surviving without mtDNA, because it is known that the TFAM gene is lethal in knockout mice and chicken. Moreover, we evaluated the effects of TFAM modification on mtDNA copy number. The CRISPR gRNA was designed to target exon 1 of the bovine TFAM gene and subsequently cloned. Fibroblasts were transfected with Cas9 and control plasmids. After 24 h of transfection, cells were analyzed by flow cytometry to evaluate the efficiency of transfection. The site directed-mutation frequency was assessed by T7 endonuclease assay, and cell clones were analyzed for mtDNA copy number by Sanger DNA sequencing. We achieved transfection efficiency of 51.3%. We selected 23 successfully transformed clones for further analysis, and seven of these exhibited directed mutations at the CRISPR/Cas9 targeted site. Moreover, we also found a decrease in mtDNA copy number in the gene edited clones compared to that in the controls. These TFAM gene mutant cells were viable in culture when supplemented with uridine and pyruvate. We conclude that this CRISPR/Cas9 design was efficient, resulting in seven heterozygous mutant clones and opening up the possibility to use these mutant cell lines as a model system to elucidate the role of TFAM in the maintenance of mtDNA integrity.