Improving cassava bacterial blight resistance by editing the epigenome

• Published in: Nature communications 2023-01, Vol.14 (1), p.85-85, Article 85
• Main Authors: Veley, Kira M., Elliott, Kiona, Jensen, Greg, Zhong, Zhenhui, Feng, Suhua, Yoder, Marisa, Gilbert, Kerrigan B., Berry, Jeffrey C., Lin, Zuh-Jyh Daniel, Ghoshal, Basudev, Gallego-Bartolomé, Javier, Norton, Joanna, Motomura-Wages, Sharon, Carrington, James C., Jacobsen, Steven E., Bart, Rebecca S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 13; 13/106; 38/23; 38/39; 631/208/8; 631/449/1659; 631/449/2169/2674; 82/80; Binding; Blight; Cassava; Crop improvement; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Disease resistance; Disease Resistance - genetics; DNA; DNA methylation; Editing; Epigenetics; Epigenome; Gene expression; Genes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Manihot - genetics; multidisciplinary; Pathogens; Plant bacterial diseases; Plant Diseases - genetics; Plant Diseases - microbiology; S gene; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Signs and symptoms; Transcription activation; Transcription Factors - metabolism; Xanthomonas - genetics; Xanthomonas phaseoli; Zinc finger proteins
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35675-7

Pathogens rely on expression of host susceptibility ( S ) genes to promote infection and disease. As DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification that affects gene expression, blocking access to S genes through targeted methylation could increase disease resistance. Xanthomonas phaseoli pv. manihotis , the causal agent of cassava bacterial blight (CBB), uses transcription activator-like20 (TAL20) to induce expression of the S gene MeSWEET10a . In this work, we direct methylation to the TAL20 effector binding element within the MeSWEET10a promoter using a synthetic zinc-finger DNA binding domain fused to a component of the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway. We demonstrate that this methylation prevents TAL20 binding, blocks transcriptional activation of MeSWEET10a in vivo and that these plants display decreased CBB symptoms while maintaining normal growth and development. This work therefore presents an epigenome editing approach useful for crop improvement. Activating the expression of host susceptibility ( S ) genes is one of the strategies plant pathogens employed to promote infection of their host. Here, the authors show that targeted methylation at the TAL20 effector binding element of the cassava SWEET10a gene lead to resistance to Xanthomonas phaseoli .