摘要
Dear Editor, Recently, engineered endonucleases, such as Zinc-Finger Nucleases （ZFNs） （Carroll, 2011）, Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases （TALENs） （Mahfouz et al., 2011; Li et al., 2012）, and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats （CRISPR）-associated （Cas） systems （Cong et al., 2013） have been successfully used for gene editing in a variety of species. These systems generate double-strand breaks （DSBs） at target loci to drive site-specific DNA sequence modifica- tions. The modifications include sequence insertion and deletion and other mutations in the host genomes via the error-prone non-homologous end joining （NHEJ） pathway or sequence correction or replacement through the error-free homologous recombination （HR） pathway （Symington and Gautier, 2011）. Here, we show that the CRISPR-Cas system can be applied to generate targeted gene mutations and gene corrections in plants, and the system can also be readily engi- neered to achieve deletion of large DNA fragments and for multiplex gene editing in plants.
Dear Editor, Recently, engineered endonucleases, such as Zinc-Finger Nucleases （ZFNs） （Carroll, 2011）, Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases （TALENs） （Mahfouz et al., 2011; Li et al., 2012）, and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats （CRISPR）-associated （Cas） systems （Cong et al., 2013） have been successfully used for gene editing in a variety of species. These systems generate double-strand breaks （DSBs） at target loci to drive site-specific DNA sequence modifica- tions. The modifications include sequence insertion and deletion and other mutations in the host genomes via the error-prone non-homologous end joining （NHEJ） pathway or sequence correction or replacement through the error-free homologous recombination （HR） pathway （Symington and Gautier, 2011）. Here, we show that the CRISPR-Cas system can be applied to generate targeted gene mutations and gene corrections in plants, and the system can also be readily engi- neered to achieve deletion of large DNA fragments and for multiplex gene editing in plants.
