New Rice Resistance Genes via Targeted Genome Editing

Ralf Koebnik of the Institut de Recherche Pour le Développement in France will generate rice plants resistant to Xanthomonas by making them unresponsive to bacterial infection by selectively generating new rice resistance genes using TALEN technology. To infect, Xanthomonas activates susceptibility genes in rice using transcription factors (TAL effectors). This work would selectively induce mutations in the promoters of rice susceptibility genes at the TAL effector binding sites by either transforming rice with a specific mutagenic TALEN locus or by directly delivering specific mutagenic TALEN proteins directly into the rice plant and then test for resistance.