Enhanced Rice Blast Resistance by CRISPR/Cas9-Targeted Mutagenesis of the ERF Transcription Factor Gene OsERF922

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154027
• Publication Date: 2016-04-26T13:38:02Z
• Authors: Fujun Wang; Chunlian Wang; Piqing Liu; Cailin Lei; Wei Hao; Ying Gao; Yao-Guang Liu; Kaijun Zhao
• Keywords: Indel; Panicle; Genetically modified rice; TILLING

Rice blast is one of the most destructive diseases affecting rice worldwide. The adoption host resistance has proven to be economical and effective approach control blast. In recent years, sequence-specific nucleases (SSNs) have been demonstrated powerful tools for improvement crops via gene-specific genome editing, CRISPR/Cas9 thought SSN. Here, we report by engineering a SSN (C-ERF922) targeting OsERF922 gene in rice. Twenty-one C-ERF922-induced mutant plants (42.0%) were identified from 50 T0 transgenic plants. Sanger sequencing revealed that these harbored various insertion or deletion (InDel) mutations at target site. We showed all allele transmitted subsequent generations. Mutant harboring desired modification but not containing transferred DNA obtained segregation T1 T2 Six homozygous lines further examined phenotype agronomic traits, such as plant height, flag leaf length width, number productive panicles, panicle length, grains per panicle, seed setting percentage thousand weight. results lesions formed following pathogen infection was significantly decreased 6 compared with wild-type both seedling tillering stages. Furthermore, there no significant differences between any regard traits tested. also simultaneously targeted multiple sites within using Cas9/Multi-target-sgRNAs (C-ERF922S1S2 C-ERF922S1S2S3) obtain two three sites. Our indicate useful enhancing