Simple promotion of Cas9 and Cas12a expression improves gene targeting via an all-in-one strategy

Gene targeting (GT) is a promising tool for precise manipulation of genome sequences, however, GT in seed plants remains a challenging task. The simple and direct way to improve the efficiency of GT via homology-directed repair (HDR) is to increase the frequency of double-strand breaks (DSBs) at tar...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yiqiu Cheng, Lei Zhang, Jing Li, Xiaofei Dang, Jian-Kang Zhu, Hiroaki Shimada, Daisuke Miki
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2024-03-01
Series:Frontiers in Plant Science
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Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2024.1360925/full
Description
Summary:Gene targeting (GT) is a promising tool for precise manipulation of genome sequences, however, GT in seed plants remains a challenging task. The simple and direct way to improve the efficiency of GT via homology-directed repair (HDR) is to increase the frequency of double-strand breaks (DSBs) at target sites in plants. Here we report an all-in-one approach of GT in Arabidopsis by combining a transcriptional and a translational enhancer for the Cas expression. We find that facilitating the expression of Cas9 and Cas12a variant by using enhancers can improve DSB and subsequent knock-in efficiency in the Arabidopsis genome. These results indicate that simply increasing Cas protein expression at specific timings - egg cells and early embryos - can improve the establishment of heritable GTs. This simple approach allows for routine genome engineering in plants.
ISSN:1664-462X