Auto-excision of selectable marker genes from transgenic tobacco via a stress inducible FLP/FRT site-specific recombination system

Application of new breeding techniques in fruit trees

Climate change and rapid adaption of invasive pathogens pose a constant pressure on the fruit industry to develop improved varieties. Aiming to accelerate the development of better-adapted cultivars, new breeding techniques have emerged as a promising alternative to meet the demand of a growing global population. Accelerated breeding, cisgenesis, and CRISPR/Cas genome editing hold significant potential for crop trait improvement and have proven to be useful in several plant species. This review focuses on the successful application of these technologies in fruit trees to confer pathogen resistance and tolerance to abiotic stress and improve quality traits. In addition, we review the optimization and diversification of CRISPR/Cas genome editing tools applied to fruit trees, such as multiplexing, CRISPR/Cas-mediated base editing and site-specific recombination systems. Advances in protoplast regeneration and delivery techniques, including the use of nanoparticles and viral-derived replicons, are described for the obtention of exogenous DNA-free fruit tree species. The regulatory landscape and broader social acceptability for cisgenesis and CRISPR/Cas genome editing are also discussed. Altogether, this review provides an overview of the versatility of applications for fruit crop improvement, as well as current challenges that deserve attention for further optimization and potential implementation of new breeding techniques.

The Role of Italy in the Use of Advanced Plant Genomic Techniques on Fruit Trees: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Climate change is deeply impacting the food chain production, lowering quality and yield. In this context, the international scientific community has dedicated many efforts to enhancing resilience and sustainability in agriculture. Italy is among the main European producers of several fruit trees; therefore, national research centers and universities undertook several initiatives to maintain the specificity of the 'Made in Italy' label. Despite their importance, fruit crops are suffering from difficulties associated with the conventional breeding approaches, especially in terms of financial commitment, land resources availability, and long generation times. The 'new genomic techniques' (NGTs), renamed in Italy as 'technologies for assisted evolution' (TEAs), reduce the time required to obtain genetically improved cultivars while precisely targeting specific DNA sequences. This review aims to illustrate the role of the Italian scientific community in the use of NGTs, with a specific focus on Citrus, grapevine, apple, pear, chestnut, strawberry, peach, and kiwifruit. For each crop, the key genes and traits on which the scientific community is working, as well as the technological improvements and advancements on the regeneration of local varieties, are presented. Lastly, a focus is placed on the legal aspects in the European and in Italian contexts.

A CRISPR/Cas9-Based System with Controllable Auto-Excision Feature Serving Cisgenic Plant Breeding and Beyond

Transgenic or genetically modified crops have great potential in modern agriculture but still suffer from heavy regulations worldwide due to biosafety concerns. As a promising alternative route, cisgenic crops have received higher public acceptance and better reviews by governing authorities. To serve the purpose of cisgenic plant breeding, we have developed a CRISPR/Cas9-based vector system, which is capable of delivering target gene-of-interest (GOI) into recipient plants while removing undesired genetic traces in the plants. The new system features a controllable auto-excision feature, which is realized by a core design of embedded multi-clonal sequence and the use of inducible promoters controlling the expression of Cas9 nuclease. In the current proof-of-concept study in Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh., we have successfully incorporated a GOI into the plant and removed the selection marker and CRISPR/Cas9 components from the final product. Following the designed workflow, we have demonstrated that novel cisgenic plant germplasms with desired traits could be developed within one to two generations. Further characterizations of the vector system have shown that heat treatment at 37 °C could significantly improve the editing efficiency (up to 100%), and no off-target mutations were identified in the Arabidopsis background. This novel vector system is the first CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing tool for cisgenic plant breeding and should prove powerful for other similar applications in the bright future of precision molecular breeding.

Generation of a selectable marker free, highly expressed single copy locus as landing pad for transgene stacking in sugarcane

A selectable marker free, highly expressed single copy locus flanked by insulators was created as landing pad for transgene stacking in sugarcane. These events displayed superior transgene expression compared to single-copy transgenic lines lacking insulators. Excision of the selectable marker gene from transgenic sugarcane lines was supported by FLPe/FRT site-specific recombination. Sugarcane, a tropical C4 grass in the genus Saccharum (Poaceae), accounts for nearly 80% of sugar produced worldwide and is also an important feedstock for biofuel production. Generating transgenic sugarcane with predictable and stable transgene expression is critical for crop improvement. In this study, we generated a highly expressed single copy locus as landing pad for transgene stacking. Transgenic sugarcane lines with stable integration of a single copy nptII expression cassette flanked by insulators supported higher transgene expression along with reduced line to line variation when compared to single copy events without insulators by NPTII ELISA analysis. Subsequently, the nptII selectable marker gene was efficiently excised from the sugarcane genome by the FLPe/FRT site-specific recombination system to create selectable marker free plants. This study provides valuable resources for future gene stacking using site-specific recombination or genome editing tools.

Genetically modified (GM) crops: milestones and new advances in crop improvement

New advances in crop genetic engineering can significantly pace up the development of genetically improved varieties with enhanced yield, nutrition and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Genetically modified (GM) crops can act as powerful complement to the crops produced by laborious and time consuming conventional breeding methods to meet the worldwide demand for quality foods. GM crops can help fight malnutrition due to enhanced yield, nutritional quality and increased resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. However, several biosafety issues and public concerns are associated with cultivation of GM crops developed by transgenesis, i.e., introduction of genes from distantly related organism. To meet these concerns, researchers have developed alternative concepts of cisgenesis and intragenesis which involve transformation of plants with genetic material derived from the species itself or from closely related species capable of sexual hybridization, respectively. Recombinase technology aimed at site-specific integration of transgene can help to overcome limitations of traditional genetic engineering methods based on random integration of multiple copy of transgene into plant genome leading to gene silencing and unpredictable expression pattern. Besides, recently developed technology of genome editing using engineered nucleases, permit the modification or mutation of genes of interest without involving foreign DNA, and as a result, plants developed with this technology might be considered as non-transgenic genetically altered plants. This would open the doors for the development and commercialization of transgenic plants with superior phenotypes even in countries where GM crops are poorly accepted. This review is an attempt to summarize various past achievements of GM technology in crop improvement, recent progress and new advances in the field to develop improved varieties aimed for better consumer acceptance.

Development of Selectable Marker-Free Transgenic Rice Plants with Enhanced Seed Tocopherol Content through FLP/FRT-Mediated Spontaneous Auto-Excision

Development of marker-free transgenic plants is a technical alternative for avoiding concerns about the safety of selectable marker genes used in genetically modified (GM) crops. Here, we describe the construction of a spontaneous self-excision binary vector using an oxidative stress-inducible modified FLP/FRT system and its successful application to produce marker-free transgenic rice plants with enhanced seed tocopherol content. To generate selectable marker-free transgenic rice plants, we constructed a binary vector using the hpt selectable marker gene and the rice codon-optimized FLP (mFLP) gene under the control of an oxidative stress-inducible promoter between two FRT sites, along with multiple cloning sites for convenient cloning of genes of interest. Using this pCMF binary vector with the NtTC gene, marker-free T₁ transgenic rice plants expressing NtTC were produced by Agrobacterium-mediated stable transformation using hygromycin as a selective agent, followed by segregation of selectable marker genes. Furthermore, α-, γ-, and total tocopherol levels were significantly increased in seeds of the marker-free transgenic TC line compared with those of wild-type plants. Thus, this spontaneous auto-excision system, incorporating an oxidative stress-inducible mFLP/FRT system to eliminate the selectable marker gene, can be easily adopted and used to efficiently generate marker-free transgenic rice plants. Moreover, nutritional enhancement of rice seeds through elevation of tocopherol content coupled with this marker-free strategy may improve human health and public acceptance of GM rice.

Purple chromoprotein gene serves as a new selection marker for transgenesis of the microalga Nannochloropsis oculata

Among the methods used to screen transgenic microalgae, antibiotics selection has raised environmental and food safety concerns, while the observation of fluorescence proteins could be influenced by the endogenous fluorescence of host chloroplasts. As an alternative, this study isolated the purple chromoprotein (CP) from Stichodacyla haddoni (shCP). A plasmid in which shCP cDNA is driven by a heat-inducible promoter was linearized and electroporated into 2.5×10⁸ protoplasts of Nannochloropsis oculata. Following regeneration and cultivation on an f/2 medium plate for two weeks, we observed 26 colonies that displayed a slightly dark green coloration. After individually subculturing and performing five hours of heat shock at 42°C, a dark brown color was mosaically displayed in five of these colonies, indicating that both untransformed and transformed cells were mixed together in each colony. To obtain a uniform expression of shCP throughout the whole colony, we continuously isolated each transformed cell that exhibited brown coloration and subcultured it on a fresh plate, resulting in the generation of five transgenic lines of N. oculata which stably harbored the shCP gene for at least 22 months, as confirmed by PCR detection and observation by the naked eye. As shown by Western blot, exogenous shCP protein was expressed in these transgenic microalgae. Since shCP protein is biodegradable and originates from a marine organism, both environmental and food safety concerns have been eliminated, making this novel shCP reporter gene a simple, but effective and ecologically safe, marker for screening and isolating transgenic microalgae.

Less is more: strategies to remove marker genes from transgenic plants

Selectable marker genes (SMGs) and selection agents are useful tools in the production of transgenic plants by selecting transformed cells from a matrix consisting of mostly untransformed cells. Most SMGs express protein products that confer antibiotic- or herbicide resistance traits, and typically reside in the end product of genetically-modified (GM) plants. The presence of these genes in GM plants, and subsequently in food, feed and the environment, are of concern and subject to special government regulation in many countries. The presence of SMGs in GM plants might also, in some cases, result in a metabolic burden for the host plants. Their use also prevents the re-use of the same SMG when a second transformation scheme is needed to be performed on the transgenic host. In recent years, several strategies have been developed to remove SMGs from GM products while retaining the transgenes of interest. This review describes the existing strategies for SMG removal, including the implementation of site specific recombination systems, TALENs and ZFNs. This review discusses the advantages and disadvantages of existing SMG-removal strategies and explores possible future research directions for SMG removal including emerging technologies for increased precision for genome modification.

FLP recombinase-mediated site-specific recombination in silkworm, Bombyx mori

A comprehensive understanding of gene function and the production of site-specific genetically modified mutants are two major goals of genetic engineering in the post-genomic era. Although site-specific recombination systems have been powerful tools for genome manipulation of many organisms, they have not yet been established for use in the manipulation of the silkworm Bombyx mori genome. In this study, we achieved site-specific excision of a target gene at predefined chromosomal sites in the silkworm using a FLP/FRT site-specific recombination system. We first constructed two stable transgenic target silkworm strains that both contain a single copy of the transgene construct comprising a target gene expression cassette flanked by FRT sites. Using pre-blastoderm microinjection of a FLP recombinase helper expression vector, 32 G3 site-specific recombinant transgenic individuals were isolated from five of 143 broods. The average frequency of FLP recombinase-mediated site-specific excision in the two target strains genome was approximately 3.5%. This study shows that it is feasible to achieve site-specific recombination in silkworms using the FLP/FRT system. We conclude that the FLP/FRT system is a useful tool for genome manipulation in the silkworm. Furthermore, this is the first reported use of the FLP/FRT system for the genetic manipulation of a lepidopteran genome and thus provides a useful reference for the establishment of genome manipulation technologies in other lepidopteran species.

Transgene excision in pollen using a codon optimized serine resolvase CinH-RS2 site-specific recombination system

Transgene escape, a major environmental and regulatory concern in transgenic crop cultivation, could be alleviated by removing transgenes from pollen, the most frequent vector for transgene flow. A transgene excision vector containing a codon optimized serine resolvase CinH recombinase (CinH) and its recognition sites RS2 were constructed and transformed into tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv. Xanthi). CinH recombinase recognized 119 bp of nucleic acid sequences, RS2, in pollen and excised the transgene flanked by the RS2 sites. In this system, the pollen-specific LAT52 promoter from tomato was employed to control the expression of CinH recombinase. Loss of expression of a green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene under the control of the LAT59 promoter from tomato was used as an indicator of transgene excision. Efficiency of transgene excision from pollen was determined by flow cytometry (FCM)-based pollen screening. While a transgenic event in the absence of CinH recombinase contained about 70% of GFP-synthesizing pollen, three single-copy transgene events contained less than 1% of GFP-synthesizing pollen based on 30,000 pollen grains analyzed per event. This suggests that CinH-RS2 recombination system could be effectively utilized for transgene biocontainment.