New gene combo speeds up lab-based corn engineering sevenfold
Chen Z, Zhou J, Galli M, Iohannes SD, Clark T
Crispr
The sweet corn in your garden and the field corn feeding livestock down the road both depend on breeding tools like this one, which could speed up the development of hardier, more productive varieties.
Getting new genes into corn plants and coaxing them to grow into whole new plants again is slow and finicky, especially for academic labs without huge budgets. Researchers found that pairing two natural plant growth switches works far better together than either one alone, cutting the process to about two months and making it seven times more efficient. They also discovered that adding two simple nutrients, an amino acid called asparagine and a sugar called trehalose, to the growing medium helps leaves regrow into new plants even more easily.
Key Findings
Combining GRF4-GIF1 and BABY BOOM growth regulators (the 'GGB' system) increased maize transformation efficiency 7-fold compared to using either regulator alone
Transformed plantlets regenerated in about 2 months, and the added growth regulators did not need to be removed afterward since they didn't harm plant development
RNA-seq analysis identified asparagine and trehalose as media additives that significantly boost leaf regeneration, and pollen transmission of the transgene was reduced, aiding containment
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists combined two plant growth-boosting genes to make maize genetic engineering 7 times more efficient, cutting the process to about two months and making it easier for university labs to create modified corn for research.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
The combination of morphogenic regulators BABY BOOM and GRF-GIF improves maize transformation efficiency and promotes leaf regeneration.
Transformation is an indispensable tool for plant genetics and functional genomics. Although stable transformation in maize is no longer a major obstacle, there remains a need for accessible and ef...
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