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Wheat rescued from fungal disease

Nature Biotechnology volume 32, pages 886–887 (2014)Cite this article

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Knockout of all six alleles of a gene in the large wheat genome confers resistance to powdery mildew.

Genetic engineering to improve crops is entering a new era as conventional transgenesis technology, which involves random insertion of genes into the genome, is superseded by newer approaches that enable precise genetic alterations. A particular technological challenge in carrying out targeted genome modification in crops is that many plant genomes are polyploid, including such important species as wheat, potato and canola1. In this issue, Wang et al.2 report engineering of the hexaploid wheat genome using sequence-specific nucleases (SSNs)—the first demonstration in a polyploid crop of SSN-mediated genetic alterations that are stably transmitted to the next generation. By knocking out all six alleles encoding the MILDEW-RESISTANCE LOCUS (MLO) protein, the authors generated a mutant line that shows strong resistance to powdery mildew, a devastating fungal disease. This is a remarkable feat, given the ploidy and enormous size (17.1 Gb) of the wheat genome, and showcases the power of SSNs for engineering complex plant genomes and for creating crops with valuable traits.

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Figure 1: SSNs slice into big DNA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development and Center for Genome Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Javier Gil-Humanes & Daniel F. Voytas

Authors
  1. Javier Gil-Humanes
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  2. Daniel F. Voytas
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Correspondence to Daniel F. Voytas.

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Competing interests

D.F.V. is an inventor on a TALEN patent and consults for a company that uses TALENS for plant genome engineering.

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Gil-Humanes, J., Voytas, D. Wheat rescued from fungal disease. Nat Biotechnol 32, 886–887 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3013

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