Creation of targeted inversion mutations in plants using an RNA-guided endonuclease
Congsheng Zhang,
Changlin Liu,
Jianfeng Weng,
Beijiu Cheng,
Fang Liu,
Xinhai Li,
Chuanxiao Xie
Affiliations
Congsheng Zhang
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
Changlin Liu
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
Jianfeng Weng
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
Beijiu Cheng
Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
Fang Liu
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
Xinhai Li
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
Chuanxiao Xie
Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Beijing 100081, China
Inversions are DNA rearrangements that are essential for plant gene evolution and adaptation to environmental changes. We demonstrate the creation of targeted inversions and previously reported targeted deletion mutations via delivery of a pair of RNA-guided endonucleases (RGENs) of CRISPR/Cas9. The efficiencies of the targeted inversions were 2.6% and 2.2% in the Arabidopsis FLOWERING TIME (AtFT) and TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (AtTFL1) loci, respectively. Thus, we successfully established an approach that can potentially be used to introduce targeted DNA inversions of interest for functional studies and crop improvement.
