The Rise of the CRISPR/Cpf1 System for Efficient Genome Editing in Plants

Anshu Alok; Dulam Sandhya; Phanikanth Jogam; Vandasue Rodrigues; Kaushal K Bhati; Himanshu Sharma; Jitendra Kumar

doi:10.3389/fpls.2020.00264

The Rise of the CRISPR/Cpf1 System for Efficient Genome Editing in Plants

Front Plant Sci. 2020 Mar 31:11:264. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00264. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Anshu Alok¹, Dulam Sandhya², Phanikanth Jogam², Vandasue Rodrigues³, Kaushal K Bhati⁴, Himanshu Sharma⁵, Jitendra Kumar⁶

Affiliations

¹ University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.
² Department of Biotechnology, Kakatiya University, Warangal, India.
³ Copenhagen Plant Science Centre, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁴ Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
⁵ CSK Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University, Palampur, India.
⁶ Department of Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, United States.

Abstract

Cpf1, an endonuclease of the class 2 CRISPR family, fills the gaps that were previously faced in the world of genome engineering tools, which include the TALEN, ZFN, and CRISPR/Cas9. Other simultaneously discovered nucleases were not able to carry out re-engineering at the same region due to the loss of a target site after first-time engineering. Cpf1 acts as a dual nuclease, functioning as an endoribonuclease to process crRNA and endodeoxyribonuclease to cleave target sequences and generate double-stranded breaks. Additionally, Cpf1 allows for multiplexed genome editing, as a single crRNA array transcript can target multiple loci in the genome. The CRISPR/Cpf1 system enables gene deletion, insertion, base editing, and locus tagging in monocot as well as in dicot plants with fewer off-target effects. This tool has been efficiently demonstrated into tobacco, rice, soybean, wheat, etc. This review covers the development and applications of Cpf1 mediated genome editing technology in plants.

Keywords: CRISPR; Cas9; Cpf1; NHEJ; TALEN; ZFN; crRNA; endoribonuclease.

Publication types

Review