High-frequency modification of plant genes using engineered zinc-finger nucleases

Jeffrey A. Townsend, David A. Wright, Ronnie J. Winfrey, Fengli Fu, Morgan L. Maeder, J. Keith Joung and Daniel F. Voytas ()
Additional contact information
Jeffrey A. Townsend: Development & Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
David A. Wright: Development & Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
Ronnie J. Winfrey: Development & Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
Fengli Fu: Development & Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
Morgan L. Maeder: Molecular Pathology Unit and Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA
J. Keith Joung: Molecular Pathology Unit and Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129, USA
Daniel F. Voytas: Cell Biology & Development

Nature, 2009, vol. 459, issue 7245, 442-445

Abstract: On target for new plant genes The scope for improvement of yield and disease resistance of crop plants by genetic engineering has been limited by the lack of an efficient method for targeted gene modification. Zinc-finger protein technology looks set to fill the gap. This relies on the use of designed zinc-finger nucleases, artificial chimaeric proteins that exploit the natural recognition mechanism of cellular DNA repair machinery, to make sequence-specific double-stranded DNA breaks at a target locus. In this issue two groups report the successful application of this emerging technique. Shukla et al. modify the maize gene IPK1, thereby introducing both herbicide tolerance and modified phytate metabolism into this important crop plant. Townsend et al. target the SuR loci in tobacco plants, conferring resistance to imidazolinone and sulphonylurea herbicides. The method achieves a high frequency of gene targeting and should be suitable for the routine modification of endogenous plant genes.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07845 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:459:y:2009:i:7245:d:10.1038_nature07845

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature07845

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().