Page 55 - PC2019 Program & Proceedings

PLANT CANADA 2019

PS2. Monday, July 8, morning session at 9:20 am

Dr. Bing Yang

University of Missouri, USA

Genome editing enables disease resistance in rice

Abstract: Engineered CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) systems have
emerged as potent biotechnological tools for both basic and applied research. The most promising utilization of
CRISPR/Cas9 is for targeted genome editing, leading to precise genetic alterations within any genome of
interest, as demonstrated in a plethora of organisms including several important crop plants. Bacterial blight is
an important disease of rice in Asia and Africa. The causal agent Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) uses
secreted TAL effectors (TALes) to ectopically activate host SWEET sucrose transporter genes, enabling disease.
Xoo uses a limited set of TALes to target promoters of three SWEET (SWEET11, 13, and 14) genes in rice.
Naturally occurring variant SWEET genes act as recessive resistance genes by interfering with TALe targeting.
We used CRISPR/Cas9 to engineer rice lines that carry multiple mutations in three SWEET gene promoters. The
SWEET promoter mutations were introduced into different rice varieties, and the disease evaluation showed
that editing SWEET promoters generated robust, broad-spectrum BB resistance. We also created rice lines that
carry knockout mutations individually or in combination in three SWEET (SWEET11, 13, and 14) genes. The
knockout lines are useful diagnostic tools to determine SWEET-inducing TALes in field Xoo isolates and guide
the deployment of resistance genes derived from the naturally occurring or genome edited SWEET promoter
mutations.

Bio:

Dr. Bing Yang is professor in the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri – Columbia and
member at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. He received PhD degree in plant pathology at Kansas State
University in 2000, joined Iowa State University as an assistant professor in 2007, and moved to the University
of Missouri – Columbia and Danforth Plant Science Center in 2018.

Yang works on development and application of TALEN- and CRISPR-based genome editing technologies in crops
such as rice, maize, wheat, sorghum and soybean. His research also focuses on basic understanding of host
susceptibility/resistance to bacterial infection and using genome editing tools to engineer disease resistance in
crop plants.

https://cafnr.missouri.edu/person/bing-yang/

https://www.danforthcenter.org/scientists-research/principal-investigators/bing-yang

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