Poster Presentation International Plant Molecular Biology Conference 2024

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated rice nac mutants with altered innate immunity (#82)

Seungmin Son 1 , Giha Song 1 , Gunhee Lee 1 , Kyong Sil Lee 1 , Yeo Jin Park 1 , Eun-Jung Suh 1 , Sang Ryeol Park 1
  1. Rural development administration, Jeonju-si, JEOLLABUK-DO, South Korea

Transcription factors (TFs) control gene expression and play central roles in plant responses to stress, including pathogen infection. Identifying and functionally analyzing TFs involved in innate immunity are crucial for generating new crop cultivars. The plant-specific NAM, ATAF, and CUC (NAC) transcription factor superfamily is involved in growth, development, and stress responses. NACs are important for enhancing resistance in food crop plants via transgenic technologies because they have roles in growth and multi-environmental stress resistance. Therefore, NAC genes could serve as important targets for breeding plant varieties with enhanced resistance against various pathogens. Here, we generated mutant lines of various OsNAC genes in the elite japonica rice (Oryza sativa) cultivar Samgwang using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated nuclease 9 (Cas9)-mediated genome editing. We developed CRISPR/Cas9 plasmids expressing single-guide RNAs for 146 OsNACs and used them to generate 1319 T0 transgenic plants from hygromycin-resistant calli. Via high-throughput deep sequencing and molecular characterization, we identified 60 T1 homozygous mutant lines containing 23 mutant OsNAC genes. Analysis of innate immunity revealed that T1 homozygous mutant lines of osnac30 showed enhanced disease resistance to bacterial blight, while osnac59 lines showed enhanced resistance and osnac101 lines showed reduced resistance to bakanae disease. Interestingly, osnac30 enhances rice immunity without suffering a yield penalty. This study provides vital information for analyzing the biological functions of OsNAC TFs as well as valuable materials for breeding rice with enhanced innate immunity.