Targeted mutagenesis of SSS4A gene related starch biosynthesis using gene editing technology in Dongjin rice

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) have been used for targeted mutagenesis in eukaryotic cells. Custom-designed ZFNs can induce double-strand breaks (DSBs) at a specific locus. Our custom ZFN dimer was designed 3-finger of left and 4-finger of right with 2 kb size using 2A. A Ti-plasmid vector, pTA7002 containing the target site of SSS4A gene for a ZFN pair, that was shown to be active in yeast, was integrated in the rice genome. This promising technique for genome engineering was induced into 4 exon region of SSS4A gene in rice genome using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The SSS4A full-length cDNA was 5,070 bp consisting of a 318 bp 5′-untranslated region (UTR), a complete ORF of 2,928 bp encoding a polypeptide of 975 amino acids and a 3′-UTR of 1,824 bp. The vector is based on glucocorticoid receptor inducible gene expression system. Thus, SSS4A::ZFN expression was tightly controlled and the phenotype in low concentrations 10uM of the glucocorticoid hormone dexamethasone (DEX). In plant cells, transient ZFN expression is achieved by direct gene transfer into the target cells. For an alternative, ZFN delivery and production of mutant plants using a tobacco transient expression system for indirect transient delivery of ZFNs into a variety of tissues and cells of plants. ZFN activity was determined by PCR and sequence analysis of the target site. ZFN induced plants were obtained in up to 2% of the PCR products, consisting of deletions ranging between 1and 100 bp and insertions ranging between 1 and 10 bp. Our results describe an alternative to direct gene transfer for ZFN delivery and for the production of mutated rice.