Associate Professor University of South Carolina Aiken Aiken, South Carolina
Efficient identification and manipulation of genes influencing agronomically important traits is crucial for crop improvement. Leveraging the mPing transposable element from rice, we have developed mutagenesis resources capable of generating both knockdown and overexpression phenotypes. Experiments in soybean show that mPing-based activation tags incorporating enhancer sequences can induce upregulation of nearby genes. This technology has been advanced in collaboration with Keith Slotkin’s Laboratory at the Donald Danforth Center by establishing a reliable method for sequence-specific targeting of mPing insertion in plant genomes. Linking Pong Transposase to CRISPR/Cas nucleases allows for the excised mPing elements to be inserted into the Cas targeted double stranded breaks. In summary, these experiments demonstrate the potential of mPing-based mutagenesis for crop improvement and expanding crop genetic engineering capabilities.