Seoul, South Korea, 30 SEP, 2024 – The research team of GreenGene published a new paper – Herbicide-resistant plants produced by precision adenine base editing in plastid DNA in the international journal ‘Nature Plants’ on 26 September. The co-first authors are Senior Researcher, Dr. Youngkeun Mok, and Researcher Director, Dr. Sunghyun Hong, while the corresponding author is Dr. Jinsu Kim, Chief Technology Officer of GreenGene. GreenGene (CEO – Dr. Jungeun Joanna Lee) has successfully developed herbicide-resistant plants using a precise genome editing for chloroplast DNA, that cannot be achieved with CRISPR-Cas9. This is a good example that shows the proprietary and unique Chloroplast Gene Editing technology of GreenGene, which has been further optimized with UDG (the uracil-N-glycosylase gene) for its specificity, minimizing off-target editing even with specific homoplasmic outcome. After a thorough technical and science-based review by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), GreenGene received non-GMO certification. This confirms that no external genes have been introduced and that no other mutations have occurred in the chloroplast genome, thus, the plants are not subject to GMO regulations. GreenGene discovered that when applying TALED for editing plant chloroplast DNA, unwanted C-to-T corrections occurred alongside the desired A-to-G corrections. To address this issue, GreenGene fused uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) with TALED, allowing UDG to remove the uracil(U) generated during C-to-T corrections, ultimately inducing only A-to-G mutations. AtpsbA S264-edited plants were resistant to the dosage used for crop cultivation. Various concentrations of atrazine were sprayed to 1-week-old wild type and #18-2 AtpsbA S264-edited line. The photograph was taken 5 days after treatment. Scale bar= 1 cm. Furthermore, using the technology, GreenGene successfully edited specific nucleotides in the pasbA gene, which codes for the D1 protein crucial for photosynthesis, to create herbicide-resistant plants. In this process, GreenGene obtained plants without the introduction of external genes or other mutations in the chloroplast genome. Based on this progress, GreenGene is targeting the turfgrass market as its first market opportunity, which has significant market potential and unmet demand. GreenGene’s strong and dedicated team is focused on enhancing the photosynthetic efficiency of plants to tackle the greatest challenges humanity faces - climate crisis and food scarcity, driving both research and business development efforts. The new paper published online on 26 September in Nature Plants is available at - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-024-01808-7.
