CAAS Develop Gene Editing System for Wheat

Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) researchers successfully engineered a gene editing system in wheat using CRISPR-Cas12i3, which has a smaller protein size than other Cas systems. The results are published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Wheat has a hexaploidy nature, making gene-editing wheat plants more complex than usual. Thus, the researchers engineered Cas12i3/Cas12i3-5M-mediated gene editing for wheat plants, which was developed through the fusion of T5 exonuclease (T5E) in combination with an optimized crRNA expression strategy (Opt). Results showed that the Opt-T5E-Cas12i3-5M led to an editing efficiency ranging from 60-90 percent across four endogenous target genes in stable lines of three elite Chinese wheat varieties.

The new system is a valuable contribution to the wheat genome editing toolkit for biological research or genetic improvement.  Future research may use it to test with other polyploidy crop species of economic importance.

Read more results in the Plant Biotechnology Journal.

See https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/ged/article/default.asp?ID=21168