Scientists from Cellectis reported the generation of high oleic soybean in
the Journal of Plant Biotechnology. The high oleic soybean line was
engineered through targeted gene editing of 4 alleles of two fatty acid
desaturase genes (FAD2-1A and FAD2-1B).

Artificial DNA-cutting enzymes were engineered to find and slice conserved
DNA sequences in both genes. Four out of 19 soybean lines expressing the
enzyme exhibited changes in FAD2-1A and FAD2-1B as manifested in the DNA
extracted from the leaf tissue, and 3 of those 4 lines transferred heritable
FAD2-1 mutations to the following generation.

Plants with mutations in the both genes showed alterations in the fatty acid
profile, where oleic acid raised from 20 to 80 percent and linoleic acid
decreased from 50 to below 4 percent. Mutant plants carried only the
targeted mutations and the artificial enzymes were not detected.

The results of the study showed that artificial DNA-cutting enzymes can be
used to achieve targeted gene modification to improve crops.

[onlinelibrary.wiley.com]