Efficient Genome Editing for Crop Improvement.

The world faces tremendous challenges to feed the growing human population and the demand for plant-derived products such as food, feed and biofuel demonstrates the importance of continuously improving crops with better yield and nutrition.  The recent progress in genome engineering makes it feasible to precisely modify endogenous plant genes via two major repairing pathways: non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) or homologous recombination (HR).  Plant genome engineering requires the precise cleavage of plant chromosomal DNA to generate single or double-stranded DNA breaks using engineered nucleases.  In this talk, the high-value traits under development at Calyxt, Inc using the TALEN^® technology will be discussed.  This will include a survey of the traits being developed in several crop species, such as soybean, potato and wheat.