Characteristics of genome editing mutations in cereal crops

Abstract

Designer nucleases allow the creation of new plant genotypes by introducing precisely-targeted double-strand breaks that are resolved by endogenous repair pathways. The major nuclease technologies are meganucleases, zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nucleases, and the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Each comprises a promiscuous endonuclease guided by protein–DNA or RNA–DNA interactions. A great deal is known about the principles of designer nucleases but much remains to be learned about their detailed behavioral characteristics in different plant species. The outcome of genome engineering reflects the intrinsic properties of each nuclease and target genome, causing variations in efficiency, accuracy, and mutation structure. In this article, we critically discuss the activities of designer nucleases in different cereals representing a broad range of genome characteristics.

Synthetic biology and genome editing work at the UdL is supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BIO2014-54426-P and BIO2014-54441-P) and the Catalan Government 2014 SGR 1296 Agricultural Biotechnology Research Group. Work on gene targeting at the RWTH Aachen University is funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant ‘Future-Pharma’, Grant Number 269110. Fraunhofer IME has received funding from Dow AgroSciences for research on zinc-finger nucleases.