Forgoing the GMO Footprint: Study Takes First Steps to Using Viruses for Genetic Editing in Plants

In their Nature Plants study, the research teams engineered Tobacco rattle virus (TRV) to deliver sgRNA that targeted the gene encoding the phytoene desaturase (PDS) enzyme in a Cas9 expressing transgenic line of the tobacco relative Nicotiana benthamiana. Courtesy photo
In their Nature Plants study, the research teams engineered Tobacco rattle virus (TRV) to deliver sgRNA that targeted the gene encoding the phytoene desaturase (PDS) enzyme in a Cas9 expressing transgenic line of the tobacco relative Nicotiana benthamiana. Courtesy photo

Forgoing the GMO Footprint: Study Takes First Steps to Using Viruses for Genetic Editing in Plants

  • by Greg Watry

Bestowing crops with pest-resistant and climate-resistant traits is a driving force to protect humanity’s precious food resources. Despite evidence that demonstrates genetically-modified crops are as safe as crops produced through traditional breeding, sections of the public remain suspicious about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).    

For UC Davis Professor of Plant Biology Savithramma Dinesh-Kumar, this lingering suspicion has sparked a drive to develop genetically modified plants that eschew “transgenic” labels.

In a collaborative study published today in Nature Plants, Dinesh-Kumar’s group at UC Davis and Professor Daniel Voytas group at the University of Minnesota report fundamental first steps towards eliminating a transgenic approach to gene editing. The researchers hope to accomplish this by directing mutations using viruses, rather than by using a tissue culture setting, which is current standard procedure for GMOs.

Nature Plants

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