CRISPR-Cas9: Tool for Qualitative and Quantitative Plant Genome Editing

Abstract

Recent developments in genome editing techniques have aroused substantial excitement among agricultural scientists. These techniques offer new opportunities for developing improved plant lines with addition of important traits or removal of undesirable traits. Increased adoption of genome editing has been geared by swiftly developing Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). This is appearing as driving force for innovative utilization in diverse branches of plant biology. CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome editing is being used for rapid, easy and efficient alteration of genes among diverse plant species. With approximate completion of conceptual work about CRISPR-Cas9, plant scientists are applying this genome editing tool for crop attributes enhancement. The capability of this system for performing targeted and efficient modifications in genome sequence as well as gene expression will certainly spur novel developments not only in model plants but in crop and ornamental plants as well. Additionally, due to non-involvement of foreign DNA, this technique may help alleviating regulatory issues associated with genetically modified plants. We expect that prevailing challenges in plant science like genomic region manipulation, crop specific vectors etc. will be addressed along with sustained growth of this genome editing tool. In this review, recent progress of CRISPR-Cas9 technology in plants has been summarized and discussed. We reviewed significance of CRISPR-Cas9 for specific and non-traditional aspects of plant life. It also covers strengths of this technique in comparison with other genome editing techniques, e.g., Zinc finger nucleases, Transcription activator-like effector nucleases and potential challenges in coming decades have been described.

Gene Targeting Without DSB Induction Is Inefficient in Barley

“…DSB induction allows high efficiency gene targeting in barley and gene replacement with reasonably sized transformation experiments was obtained with this method recently (Watanabe et al, 2016). In addition, highly efficient and easily accessible synthetic nucleases like transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) (Wood et al, 2011; Qi et al, 2013) or clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR associated protein (Cas) (CRISPR-Cas) (Fauser et al, 2014; Feng et al, 2014; Noman et al, 2016) are readily available meanwhile and make DSB induction to the method of choice in the future.…”

Can CRISPR Win the Battle against Huanglongbing?

“…CRISPR has advantages over ZFN and TELEN, such as simple, able to use at large scale and targeting multiloci simultaneously [63,64]. Genome editing tools were used to confer crop disease resistance successfully.…”

Genome Editing in Plants: An Overview of Tools and Applications

“…Noman et al [12] 2016 Sauer et al [7] 2016 signal, and a domain that serves as activator of transcription of the target gene (Table 1) [54]. For the first time, the DNAbinding ability of these proteins was described in 2007 [55], and a year later, two scientific groups have decoded the recognition code of target DNA sequence by TALE proteins [56].…”

“…Both TALEN and CRISPR systems have been shown to work in human cells, animals, and plants. Such editing systems when used for efficient manipulation of genomes could solve complex problems including the creation of mutant and transgenic plants [12,41]. Moreover, chimeric proteins containing zinc finger domains and activation domains of other proteins and those based on the TALE DNA-binding domain and Cas9 nuclease were used in experiments for regulation of gene transcription, study of epigenomes, and the behavior of chromosome loci in cell cycle [24,[42][43][44].…”