CRISPR Suppression Constructs for Abiotic Stress Tolerance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Abiotic stress, particularly excessive or insufficient water and temperature extremes, significantly impacts crop yields, causing average losses of over 50% globally, necessitating the development of compositions and methods to enhance plant tolerance.
Innovation Solution
The use of suppression DNA constructs and CRISPR/Cas constructs to decrease the expression or activity of specific polypeptides, such as BCS1-2, DnaJ7, LNTP10, GH17.2, DUF6, ATAP1, or PCL1, by introducing heterologous regulatory elements or gRNAs targeted to genomic regions, thereby increasing drought and nitrogen stress tolerance in plants.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional breeding or traditional methods are used to improve plant tolerance to abiotic stress, then the complexity of the breeding process increases and time consumption increases, but the improvement in tolerance is limited and yield losses under stress conditions remain high
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the genetic parameters of plants by introducing specific nucleotide sequences (suppression elements) that target and reduce the expression of stress-sensitive genes. This molecular-level parameter change directly improves abiotic stress tolerance without requiring complex multi-generational breeding processes, thereby resolving the contradiction between improving reliability and reducing process complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical/conventional breeding methods with molecular biology techniques (CRISPR/Cas9, RNA interference). This substitution allows for precise, targeted genetic modification that achieves stress tolerance improvement in a single generation rather than through complex, time-consuming traditional breeding, thus reducing both device complexity and time investment while improving reliability
2Reliability
If traditional breeding methods are used to enhance plant tolerance to abiotic stress, then the time investment increases significantly, but the crop yield under stress conditions remains low with losses exceeding 50%
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by directly introducing suppression elements into the plant genome that immediately target and suppress stress-sensitive genes. This eliminates the need for time-consuming traditional breeding cycles, achieving stress tolerance improvement in a single generation and dramatically reducing the time investment while maintaining high reliability of tolerance enhancement
Solution Approach 2:
The patent substitutes traditional time-consuming mechanical breeding methods with molecular techniques (CRISPR/Cas9, RNAi) that can achieve genetic modification in a single generation. This substitution reduces time investment from multiple breeding cycles to a single transformation event, while reliably improving abiotic stress tolerance and preventing the 50%+ yield losses associated with conventional approaches
3Productivity
If no genetic modification is applied, then the plant maintains natural gene expression, but suffers severe yield losses of over 50% under abiotic stress conditions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the expression parameters of stress-sensitive genes by introducing suppression elements that specifically reduce the expression of genes like BCS1-2, DnaJ7, LNTP10, GH17.2, DUF6, ATAP1, or PCL1. This parameter change increases plant tolerance to abiotic stress, thereby maintaining crop yield under stress conditions and preventing the 50%+ losses that occur in unmodified plants, thus simultaneously improving both productivity and reliability
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are suppression DNA constructs and CRISPR/Cas9 DNA constructs that are useful for conferring improved drought tolerance, yield, and/or nitrogen stress tolerance in a plant. Also provided are genome edited plants, or plants expressing a suppression DNA construct, having improved drought tolerance, yield and/nitrogen stress tolerance. Further provided are methods for improving drought tolerance, yield, and/or nitrogen stress tolerance by introducing a genome edit in a plant or expressing a suppression DNA construct in a plant.