CRISPR/Cas9-Targeted Mutagenesis of BnaFAE1 Genes Confers Low-Erucic Acid in Brassica napus

• Published in: Frontiers in plant science 2022-02, Vol.13, p.848723-848723
• Main Authors: Liu, Yunhao, Du, Zhuolin, Lin, Shengli, Li, Haoming, Lu, Shaoping, Guo, Liang, Tang, Shan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brassica napus; CRISPR/Cas9; erucic acid; FAE1; Plant Science; seed oil content
• ISSN: 1664-462X; 1664-462X
• DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.848723

Rapeseed ( ) is an important oilseed crop widely planted in the world, providing substantial edible oil and other nutrients for mankind. The composition of fatty acids affects the edible and processing quality of vegetable oils, among which erucic acid (EA) is potentially to cause health problems. Therefore, low erucic acid (LEA) has always been a breeding trait of . ( ) plays a decisive role in the synthesis of EA. There are two functional homologous copies of on the A08 and C03 chromosomes in . In this study, we used CRISPR/Cas9 technology to create targeted mutations on these two homologous copies of in three germplasms with high EA (>30%) and high oil (>50%). Our results show that the EA content was significantly reduced by more than 10 percentage points in the mutant of ( ), while the double mutation of and ( ) resulted in nearly zero EA in three edited germplasms, and the oleic acid content was increased in different degrees. In addition, knockout of or/and mildly decreased seed oil content, but had no significant effect on other agronomic traits. In general, we successfully created low EA germplasms of , which provides a feasible way for future low EA breeding.