Establishing RNA virus resistance in plants by harnessing CRISPR immune system.

ABSTRACT

Recently, CRISPR-Cas (clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-CRISPR-associated proteins) system has been used to produce plants resistant to DNA virus infections. However, there is no RNA virus control method in plants that uses CRISPR-Cas system to target the viral genome directly. Here, we reprogrammed the CRISPR-Cas9 system from Francisella novicida to confer molecular immunity against RNA viruses in Nicotiana benthamiana and Arabidopsis plants. Plants expressing FnCas9 and sgRNA specific for the cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) or tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) exhibited significantly attenuated virus infection symptoms and reduced viral RNA accumulation. Furthermore, in the transgenic virus-targeting plants, the resistance was inheritable and the progenies showed significantly less virus accumulation. These data reveal that the CRISPR/Cas9 system can be used to produce plant that stable resistant to RNA viruses, thereby broadening the use of such technology for virus control in agricultural field.