Researchers at the University of Connecticut have reportedly developed a way to genetically modify organisms without leaving behind any foreign genes. According to a study published in Horticulture Research, this method can be used to increase plant disease resistance.
This approach solves two problems. First, many people don’t want genetically modified organisms (also called GMOs) in their food because of the possible long-term health effects. Dozens of countries have even banned the use of GMOs in food, and others have strict regulations on them. If a plant’s genome is edited without leaving foreign genes, the crop is not considered a GMO.
What’s more, this approach not only makes the plants resistant to disease (as mentioned above), but also to drought and heat. As the planet continues to warm, extreme weather events such as droughts and heat waves threaten global food supplies. With hundreds of millions of people around the world facing chronic hunger, this approach can go a long way in protecting food supplies.
Most importantly, crop yields have declined due to these problems, affecting farmers’ incomes. Advances made by Li Yi, a professor of horticultural plant breeding technology in UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, could change all that.
For years, scientists have used CRISPR gene-editing technology to edit plant genomes to develop plants with more desirable traits, but this often leaves behind foreign genes. Existing methods leave no genes behind, but they are often time-consuming or technically demanding.
Li’s team first developed a non-GMO genome editing method in 2018 and improved it using kanamycin. The chemical helps identify cells that temporarily contain CRISPR-related genes among plant cells infected by Agrobacterium, which allows Agrobacterium to transfer part of its DNA into the plant genome. Cells containing CRISPR genes are more resistant to kanamycin than other cells, so the use of kanamycin allows the edited cells to grow without having to compete with unedited cells.
Research shows the new method is 17 times more efficient than previous versions at producing genome-edited citrus plants, but it could be used on other plants as well.
“Our new but simple method is more efficient than our original method and can now be applied to a wider range of plant species,” Li said in a school news release.
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