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GENOME ENGINEERING

Plant genome editing branches out

Nature Plants volume 7, pages 4–5 (2021)Cite this article

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The budding field of precision genome editing in plants expands with an engineered CRISPR–Cas9 variant named SpRY, which enables mutagenesis of virtually any genomic sequence.

Genome editing with CRISPR technologies has transformed agricultural research and plant engineering. CRISPR–Cas enzymes act as molecular scalpels to generate mutations that can alter plant genomes, accelerating breeding processes for improved traits that would normally span years or decades1. Until recently, the scope of precise genomic mutations that could be generated was constrained by inherent properties of naturally occurring Cas enzymes. In this issue of Nature Plants, Ren et al. overcome this fundamental limitation to edit dozens of previously elusive genetic regions2 by leveraging the unconstrained targeting ability of an engineered Cas9 protein named SpRY3.

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Fig. 1: SpRY enables versatile genome editing by relaxing the PAM constraint.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Logan T. Hille & Benjamin P. Kleinstiver

  2. Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Logan T. Hille & Benjamin P. Kleinstiver

  3. PhD Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Logan T. Hille

  4. Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Benjamin P. Kleinstiver

Authors
  1. Logan T. Hille
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  2. Benjamin P. Kleinstiver
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Correspondence to Benjamin P. Kleinstiver.

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Competing interests

B.P.K. is an inventor on patent applications filed by Mass General Brigham that describe genome engineering technologies, is an advisor to Acrigen Biosciences and consults for Avectas Inc. and ElevateBio. L.T.H. declares no competing interests.

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Hille, L.T., Kleinstiver, B.P. Plant genome editing branches out. Nat. Plants 7, 4–5 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-00840-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-00840-7

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