Novel Cas12 Base Editor Produces Herbicide Tolerant Soybeans

Chinese scientists used genetic engineering to produce soybeans that have a high level of herbicide resistance.

Soybean is an essential crop due to its oil and proteins. However, its cultivation is affected by weeds. Farmers use herbicides to remove the weeds, which may affect the soybeans. Because of this, herbicide-tolerant varieties are necessary in agriculture. Previous studies discussed the applications of Cas9 base editor systems on soybean but there have been no previous research about Cas12 base editor systems.

Researchers from various institutions in China used a Cas12-SF01-based cytosine base editor to produce soybeans with herbicide resistance. The novel BE4max-dCas12-SF01 cytosine base editor system converted the C codons of GmALS1 and GmALS3 to T codons. The newly-produced varieties were compared to wild-type plants. Their findings showed that there was no obvious change in the productivity and yield of the herbicide-tolerant varieties compared with the wild-type plants. Since their strategy was successful, it can now be tried on real-world applications.

For more information, read the article on Plant Biotechnology Journal.