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CRISPR–Cas-mediated chromosome engineering for crop improvement and synthetic biology

Nature Plants volume 7, pages 566–573 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plant breeding relies on the presence of genetic variation, as well as on the ability to break or stabilize genetic linkages between traits. The development of the genome-editing tool clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) has allowed breeders to induce genetic variability in a controlled and site-specific manner, and to improve traits with high efficiency. However, the presence of genetic linkages is a major obstacle to the transfer of desirable traits from wild species to their cultivated relatives. One way to address this issue is to create mutants with deficiencies in the meiotic recombination machinery, thereby enhancing global crossover frequencies between homologous parental chromosomes. Although this seemed to be a promising approach at first, thus far, no crossover frequencies could be enhanced in recombination-cold regions of the genome. Additionally, this approach can lead to unintended genomic instabilities due to DNA repair defects. Therefore, efforts have been undertaken to obtain predefined crossovers between homologues by inducing site-specific double-strand breaks (DSBs) in meiotic, as well as in somatic plant cells using CRISPR–Cas tools. However, this strategy has not been able to produce a substantial number of heritable homologous recombination-based crossovers. Most recently, heritable chromosomal rearrangements, such as inversions and translocations, have been obtained in a controlled way using CRISPR–Cas in plants. This approach unlocks a completely new way of manipulating genetic linkages, one in which the DSBs are induced in somatic cells, enabling the formation of chromosomal rearrangements in the megabase range, by DSB repair via non-homologous end-joining. This technology might also enable the restructuring of genomes more globally, resulting in not only the obtainment of synthetic plant chromosome, but also of novel plant species.

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Fig. 1: Enhancement of meiotic crossovers by modulation of crossover control factors.
Fig. 2: Control of genetic exchange by targeted induction of crossovers and inversions.
Fig. 3: Control of genetic linkages by targeted induction of reciprocal translocations.
Fig. 4: Future perspective on chromosome engineering in plants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Donahey for proofreading the manuscript. This work was supported by the European Research Council (Advanced grant: ERC-2016-AdG_741306 CRISBREED).

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  1. Botanical Institute, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Michelle Rönspies, Annika Dorn, Patrick Schindele & Holger Puchta

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All authors wrote the manuscript. A.D. and P.S. designed the figures. P.S. created the figures.

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Correspondence to Holger Puchta.

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Rönspies, M., Dorn, A., Schindele, P. et al. CRISPR–Cas-mediated chromosome engineering for crop improvement and synthetic biology. Nat. Plants 7, 566–573 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-021-00910-4

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