Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)–CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) is a powerful double strand break technology with wide-ranging applications from gene discovery to commercial product development. Thus far, this tool has been almost exclusively used for gene knockouts and deletions, with a few examples of gene edits and targeted gene insertions. We demonstrated application of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to mediate a controlled 75.5 Mb pericentric inversion in chromosome 2 in one of the Corteva Agriscience elite maize inbred lines. This inversion unlocks for recombination a large (approximately one third of the entire chromosome) region containing significant genetic variance, thus providing opportunities for development of new maize varieties with improved phenotypes. Our results open exciting opportunities for precise chromosome engineering with multiple breeding applications in a wide variety of crop species.

CRISPR/Cas technology application: Chromosome engineering

ACS Fall 2021

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