Tingdong Li, Xinping Yang, Yuan Yu, Xiaomin Si, Xiawan Zhai, Huawei Zhang, Wenxia Dong, Caixia Gao & Cao Xu
Nature Biotechnology
DOI:10.1038/nbt.4273
Abstract
Crop improvement by inbreeding often results in fitness penalties and loss of genetic diversity. We introduced desirable traits into four stress-tolerant wild-tomato accessions by using multiplex CRISPR–Cas9 editing of coding sequences, cis- regulatory regions or upstream open reading frames of genes associated with morphology, flower and fruit production, and ascorbic acid synthesis. Cas9-free progeny of edited plants had domesticated phenotypes yet retained parental disease resistance and salt tolerance.