San Diego, California, USA
November 30, 2023
In the peer reviewed publication, the International Journal of Plant Biology, Cibus provides two case studies of improving oleic oil content and developing pod shatter reduction in Brassica napus (canola, winter oilseed rape) by using gene editing tools on an industrial scale
Cibus, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBUS), a leading agricultural technology company that develops and licenses plant traits to seed companies, today announced that its paper on Industrializing Gene Editing in Brassica napus was published in the International Journal of Plant Biology. (Link Article: https://www.mdpi.com/2037-0164/14/4/77)
“The ability to scale breeding in a precise and repeatable process is the central breakthrough of our high-speed breeding process, which we refer to as the Trait Machine™ System. Our scale breakthroughs in breeding in Brassica napus (canola or winter oilseed rape) in our San Diego trait production facility is driving the speed and number of edited seed transfers of our pod shatter reduction trait to our major seed company customers,” stated Andrew Walker, Vice President of Trait Production at Cibus. “While we focus on our initial three-crop, five-trait model, our continued breakthroughs developing additional single cell regeneration systems in multiple crops is expanding our ability to bring new scaled breeding processes and new trait opportunities to more crops in the future, especially the major oil and cereal crops.”
Peter Beetham, President and COO of Cibus, added, “Increased throughput of our Trait Machine allows Cibus to deliver multiple elite genetic lines to seed company customers that integrate into their advanced commercial breeding programs. This high-speed approach reduces timelines to develop new traits from as much as 16 years to approximately three to five years, which has been validated by collaboration agreements with partners, such as Bayer.”
Article Abstract
In plants, an increasing number of traits and new characteristics are being developed using gene editing. Simple traits represented by a single gene can be managed through backcross breeding, but this is typically not the case for more complex traits which may result from the function of a large number of genes. Here, we demonstrate two case studies of improving oleic oil content and developing pod shatter reduction in Brassica napus by using gene editing tools on an industrial scale. There are four BnaFAD2 genes involved in oleic oil content and eight BnaSHP genes involved in pod shatter tolerance. In order to develop these two traits, we delivered nuclease ribonucleoproteins with Gene Repair Oligonucleotides (GRONs) into protoplasts, with subsequent regeneration into plants on an industrial scale, which encompassed robust tissue culture protocols, efficient gene editing, robotics sampling, and molecular screening, vigorous plant regeneration, growth, and phenotyping. We can produce precise loss-of-function-edited plants with two improved agronomically important complex traits, high oleic oil or pod shatter reduction, in elite canola varieties within 1–3 years, depending on the trait complexity. In the edited plants carrying loss of function of four BnaFAD2 genes, the seed fatty acid oleic acid content reached 89% compared to 61% in the non-edited wildtype control. The plants carrying eight edited BnaSHP genes achieved 51% pod shatter reduction in multiple year field testing in the target environment compared to the wildtype control.
About the Cibus RTDS®-based High Throughput Breeding System
A key element of Cibus’ technology breakthrough is its high throughput breeding process (referred to as the Trait Machine™ System). The Trait Machine process is a crop specific application of Cibus’ patented Rapid Trait Development System™ (RTDS). The proprietary technologies in RTDS integrate crop specific cell biology platforms with a series of gene editing technologies to enable a system of end-to-end crop specific precision breeding. It is the core technology platform for Cibus’ Trait Machine: the first standardized end-to-end semi-automated crop specific gene editing system that directly edits a seed company’s elite germplasm. Each Trait Machine process requires a crop specific cell biology platform that enables Cibus to edit a single cell from a customers’ elite germplasm and grow that edited cell into a plant with the Cibus edits. Cibus has Trait Machine platforms developed for canola and rice and has already begun transferring back to customers their elite germplasm with Cibus edits.
The traits from Cibus’ RTDS-based high throughput breeding system are indistinguishable from traits developed using conventional breeding or from nature. Under the European Commission’s current proposal, if adopted, we expect that products from Cibus’ RTDS gene editing platform such as its pod shatter trait and Sclerotinia resistance traits for canola and winter oilseed rape will be considered ‘conventional-like'.
Cibus believes that RTDS and the Trait Machine process represent the technological breakthrough in plant breeding that is the ultimate promise of plant gene editing: high throughput gene editing systems operating as an extension of seed company breeding programs.
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