Currently methods for generating soybean edited lines are time-consuming, inefficient, and limited to certain genotypes. Here we describe a fast and highly efficient genome editing method based on CRISPR-Cas12a nuclease system in soybean. The method uses Agrobacterium-mediated transformation to deliver editing constructs and uses aadA or ALS genes as selectable marker. It only takes about 45 days to obtain greenhouse-ready edited plants at higher than 30% transformation efficiency and 50% editing rate. The method is applicable to other selectable markers including EPSPS and has low transgene chimera rate. The method is also genotype-flexible and has been applied to genome editing of several elite soybean varieties.
Keywords: CRISPR-LbCas12a; Fast transformation; Genotype-independent transformation; Plant selectable marker gene; Soybean genome editing; Soybean transformation.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.