Hu Xu, Lixiao Zhang, Kang Zhang, Yidong Ran

Front Plant Sci. ; 2020 Oct 22;11:571138.  doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.571138. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Soybean is grown worldwide for oil and protein source as food, feed and industrial raw material for biofuel. Steady increase in soybean production in the past century mainly attributes to genetic mediation including hybridization, mutagenesis and transgenesis. However, genetic resource limitation and intricate social issues in use of transgenic technology impede soybean improvement to meet rapid increases in global demand for soybean products. New approaches in genomics and development of site-specific nucleases (SSNs) based genome editing technologies have expanded soybean genetic variations in its germplasm and have potential to make precise modification of genes controlling the important agronomic traits in an elite background. ZFNs, TALENS and CRISPR/Cas9 have been adapted in soybean improvement for targeted deletions, additions, replacements and corrections in the genome. The availability of reference genome assembly and genomic resources increases feasibility in using current genome editing technologies and their new development. This review summarizes the status of genome editing in soybean improvement and future directions in this field.

See: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33193504/

Figure 1: Genome editing platforms and editing outcomes. Each editing platform (arrow) and its outcomes (rectangular) are coded with the same color. ZFN, zinc-finger nuclease; TALEN, transcription activator-like effector nuclease; CRISPR, clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeat; DSB, double strand breaks; SSB, single strand breaks; Outcomes of GE created by site-directed nucleases (SDN) includes: SDN1-the approach involves DNA breaks repair through DNA repair mechanisms in the host cellular without using an added repair template; SDN2-the approach involves the break repair via HR using an added homologous repair template; and SDN3-the approach involves DNA break repair via either HDR or NHEJ pathway using an added DNA template containing nonhomologous sequences but with homologous ends.