Development of a gene-targeting technique for Arabidopsis thaliana

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24651216
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Genome biology
• Research Institution: Nara Institute of Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: NAKAJIMA Keiji 奈良先端科学技術大学院大学, バイオサイエンス研究科, 教授 (80273853)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ゲノム編集 / 初期化 / シロイヌナズナ / 相同組換え

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Gene-targeting (GT) is a technology to either disrupt or modify specific gene(s) on the genome, and a power tool to study gene functions in the field of basic research, as well as to improve crop species in application. In higher plants, however, GT technology is not widely used, due to the fact that plants generally have low rate of homologous recombination. In this study, I established a cell culture of reprogrammed Arabidopsis cells to be used as a host for high-efficiency transformation, and constructed GT-vectors for Arabidopsis. After several transformation trials, it was found that the transformation efficiency is not high enough for GT experiments, and that further investigation is necessary to achieve the GT technique.

Free Research Field

植物発生生物学