Versatile Tool for Genome Editing of Targeted Plant Gene Replacement Has Been Developed

Precision DNA/gene replacement is a promising genome-editing tool that is highly desirable for molecular engineering and breeding by design in plants. Although the CRISPR/Cas9 system works well as a tool for gene knockout, gene replacement was much more challenge owing to the DNA repair donor should be presented. And, DNA/gene replacement is considerably more attractive for engineering plant genomes because more subtle DNA sequence modifications can be achieved, including DNA correction, targeted knock-in or replacement, or any type of desired mutation.

Recently, researches from Institute of Crop Science (ICS), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) reported their works on precisely targeted gene replacement efforts entitled “An alternative strategy for targeted gene replacement in plants using a dual-sgRNA/Cas9 design” on April 2^nd ,2016 on Scientific Reports, one of sister journals of Nature Publishing Group. They successfully established a gene deletion/replacement system in stably transformed plants that can potentially be utilized to introduce genes of interest for targeted crop improvement.

In recent years, a series of outputs on genome editing including 3 applied patents had been developed by this group at ICS-CAAS. Their works on maize, a world-wide major crop, had been implemented to show more attraction of mutagenesis efficiency and stable heredity on important agronomic traits of great seed industrial value including plant architecture, sterility et al.

Link to paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23890