Development of a construct for sugarcane genome editing

• Grant number: 21/06153-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2021
• End date: November 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Plant Genetics
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Menossi Teixeira
• Grantee: Bruno Spinassé Floreste
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

CRISPR and its variants are increasingly presenting themselves as a promising technique for crop improvement without the need to introduce exogenous DNA into the genome. Among the ever-growing field of gene editing by CRISPR there are the deaminases, proteins capable of performing point mutations in DNA, allowing base conversion. However, there is still no significant work that implies its use in sugarcane, even though this is a cultivar economically very important for the production of sugar and ethanol, which would imply a great benefit as a consequence of the development of techniques that would allow an increase in its productivity. In this project we intend to build a vector to transform sugar cane for the expression of a Cas9 conjugated deaminase. The construction will be done in a way to cause a point mutation in the Phytoene desaturase gene, causing its silencing, because when silenced this gene generates a bleached phenotype, allowing its easy identification. This way, we will establish a way to be able to perform sugarcane editing using CRISPR technology.