New Brighton, Minnesota, USA
July 23, 2015
Calyxt, Inc., a Minnesota-based company focusing on developing healthier food products, has announced today that Molecular Plant, a Cell Press Journal, has accepted the publication of its peer-reviewed manuscript demonstrating targeted gene editing using nucleases purified as proteins.
The results demonstrate that sequence-specific nucleases (both meganuclease and TALEN®) can be delivered to plant cells as purified protein and that a plant containing targeted genome modifications can be attained without use of nucleic acids. This approach enabled targeted mutagenesis of endogenous sequences within plant cells, while avoiding integration of foreign DNA into the genome.
“The demonstration of mutagenesis frequencies above 1% using nucleases as protein proves the usability of the approach in product development. This also further differentiates our platform from CRISPR/Cas, where the presence of the guide RNA prevents the use of the technology without nucleic acids,” said Luc Mathis, Chief Executive Officer of Calyxt, Inc.
Non-transgenic plant genome editing using purified sequence-specific Nucleases
Authors: Song Luo, Jin Li, Thomas J. Stoddard, Nicholas J.Baltes, Zachary L. Demorest, Benjamin M. Clasen, Andrew Coffman, Adam Retterath, Luc Mathis, Daniel F. Voytas, Feng Zhang
http://www.cell.com/molecular-plant/abstract/S1674-2052%2815%2900265-8
Dr. Song Luo studied Plant Physiology and Biochemistry before earned his Ph.D. at Beijing Agriculture University (current name CAU) in China. He then joined the HHMI, University of Chicago as a postdoctoral fellow, where he focused on the Arabidopsis centromere mapping and sequence analysis for the first plant genome project in 1999. In 2006, he joined Chromatin, Inc. as the Research Fellow to develop the plant mini-chromosome technology, which was initiated based on one of his inventions. He joined Cellectis in 2012 as a Project Leader, and has been working as Research Director since 2013.
About Calyxt
Founded in 2010, Calyxt, Inc. (previously Cellectis plant sciences, Inc.) is based in New Brighton, Minnesota (USA). The company aims to create healthier crop products such as low trans fat soybean oil, cold storable potato, gluten reduced wheat and low saturated canola oil for the food and agriculture industries. Calyxt is developing a network of partnerships in order to secure accessibility of its food products to consumers.
For further information please visit our website: www.calyxt.com
TALEN® is a registered trademark owned by Cellectis Group.
Calyxt™ and the corporate logo are trademarks owned by Calyxt, Inc.
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