Desi gene editing to aid cheaper, commercial GE crop breeding

MOLECULAR SCISSORS

- HARISH DAMODARAN

IN A BOOST to indigenous efforts at genome-edited (GE) crop breeding, Indian scientists have developed what is claimed to be a “miniature alternative” to the proprietary CRISPR-Cas proteins-based technology to precisely cut and tweak the DNA of plants.

The new GE technology — for which the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has recently been granted a patent — deploys the so-called TnpB or Transposon-associated proteins. These, just like the most widely used CRISPR-associated Cas9 and Cas12a proteins, act as “molecular scissors” to cleave the DNA of a gene at a predetermined target site and change its sequence. Such editing is aimed at bringing forth desirable alterations in that gene’s expression and function.

“What we have developed is a new GE system based on TnpB, instead of Cas proteins. It offers an alternative, yet highly effective next-generation tool for genome editing in plants,” said Kutubuddin Ali Molla, senior scientist at ICAR’s Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Cuttack, Odisha and lead inventor of the technology.

The CRISPR-Cas technologies are controlled mainly by the Broad Institute (a partnership between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University) and the US seeds-cum-crop protection chemicals giant Corteva Agriscience. While Broad Institute owns the patents for CRISPR-Cas12a, Corteva has a joint licencing agreement with the former to offer access to CRISPR-Cas9 technology for agricultural applications.

While scientists have developed rice varieties using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, they face a major hindrance in commercial cultivation since the intellectual property (IP) rights are with global companies/institutions that may demand license fees. Here’s where indigenous genome-edited crop breeding tools will help.