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Redirecting meiotic recombination by CRISPR–Cas-mediated chromosome engineering

A major bottleneck in plant breeding is the establishment or breakage of genetic linkages by random, naturally occurring meiotic recombination. This problem can be overcome by CRISPR–Cas-mediated chromosome engineering. By inverting ~17 Mb of chromosome 2 of Arabidopsis thaliana, we almost completely suppressed genetic crossovers in nearly the entire chromosome.

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Fig. 1: FISH analysis of the inversion.

References

  1. Rönspies, M., Dorn, A., Schindele, P. & Puchta, H. CRISPR–Cas-mediated chromosome engineering for crop improvement and synthetic biology. Nat. Plants 7, 566–573 (2021). This review discusses applications of chromosome engineering in synthetic biology and plant breeding.

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This is a summary of: Rönspies, M. et al. Massive crossover suppression by CRISPR–Cas-mediated plant chromosome engineering. Nat. Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01238-3 (2022).

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Redirecting meiotic recombination by CRISPR–Cas-mediated chromosome engineering. Nat. Plants 8, 1144–1145 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01239-2

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