Engineered CRISPR-Cas9 has become the most popular and efficient tool used
in genome engineering plants, particularly crops. Researchers have
successfully introduced mutations in several genes at the same time, develop
conditional variants of genes, and generate tagged proteins originated from
within organisms. Thus, the CRISPR-Cas9 system is highly important in
enhancing the performance of crop plants particularly in increasing the
yield, improving the nutritional content, and developing better tolerance to
biotic and abiotic stresses. Aside from these benefits, the system has shown
to be highly effective in creating large chromosomal deletions in plants,
which is useful for genetic analysis of chromosomal fragments, functional
study of gene clusters in biological processes, etc.

Scientist Riqing Li and colleagues from Iowa State University in the USA
presented a new protocol that can be used in creating large chromosomal
deletions in rice using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Detailed information about
single-guide RNA design, vector construction, plant transformation, and
large deletion screening processes in rice were also discussed.

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