NARO Scientists Report Successful Use of Eco CRISPR-Cas3 in Rice

Researchers from Japan's National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) reported a powerful tool for editing rice genes that can create large deletions in target sites. The findings are published in Plant and Cell Physiology.

The gene editing tool Eco CRISPR-Cas3, which comes from Escherichia coli, has been proven to be effective in deleting large portions of DNA in mammals. However, using this tool in plants has been a challenge because it requires all seven components of the system (six proteins and one guide RNA) to be active inside the cell simultaneously.

Using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, the researchers were able to enhance Eco CRISPR-Cas3 and make it work in rice genes. With this tool, a significant number of rice calli exhibited the intended DNA deletions; up to 71% of the cells had the edit. This high success rate indicated a potential to develop edited plants. Thus, the edited cells were used to generate rice plants that showed small and large DNA deletions, which were passed down to the following generation. Base editing was also achieved using the same tool.

Based on the findings, Eco CRISPR-Cas3 is a promising genetic improvement tool in rice, including switching off genes, removing large DNA sections, and making precise single-letter edits.

Read the research article in Plant and Cell Physiology.