Precise Engineering of Plant Genomes With Sequence-Specific Nucleases

With a rapidly increasing world population, one imminent challenge is to meet the burgeoning demand for food, fiber, fuel and other plant products.  The recent development of efficient and precise genome engineering methods provides new opportunities to improve plants by conferring desirable traits.  Highly efficient genome modifications often require targeted cleavage of specific chromosomal sequences, which generates double strand DNA breaks (DSBs) and activates endogenous DNA repair pathways. Cellectis has developed platforms to design and generate highly specific and active endonucleases, known as meganucleases, and more recently, TALE nucleases (TALENs), for recognizing and cleaving desired DNA sequences. Cellectis plant sciences implements precise genome engineering in plants through the use of the engineered nuclease reagents.  In this study, many meganucleases and TALENs have been made to target genomic sequences within various plant organisms.  Initial results of nuclease-induced targeted mutagenesis in a number of plant species will be presented.