Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have developed a new method that allows the precise addition of large genes, carrying new genetic instructions, to specific sites within a plant's genetic material, overcoming a challenge that has hindered progress in plant biotechnology for decades.

This paves the way for scientists to build more complex genetic traits in plants in the future, supporting research in areas including enhancing crop resilience, sustainable agriculture, biotechnology, and using plants for large-scale production of pharmaceuticals and biologics.

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New Approach

The study, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, presents a new genome engineering approach that allows scientists to insert large genes into specific sites within plant genomes. The team has demonstrated the success of this approach in tobacco and rice plants, opening new horizons for future research in agricultural biotechnology, synthetic biology, and plant-based biomanufacturing.

Precise Changes

In this context, it is noted that scientists have made significant progress in gene editing using techniques such as CRISPR, which allow precise and targeted changes in DNA. However, adding entirely new genes remains more complex, especially when large segments of genetic information need to be inserted into specific sites with precision. The importance of this challenge is highlighted by the fact that developing many desired traits in future crops, such as increased tolerance to heat and drought and resistance to diseases, may require the introduction of multiple genes that work together in an integrated manner.

Biological Factories

Scientists are also studying the possibility of using plants as biological factories to produce pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other valuable compounds. Achieving these goals requires the precise introduction of larger and more complex genetic instructions into plants, which has remained a major technical challenge. Professor Magdy Mahfouz, Professor of Bioengineering at KAUST and lead author of the study, said: "The future of plant biotechnology will not be limited to our ability to edit genes, but will extend to our ability to equip plants with entirely new genetic instructions."

Key Challenges

This work offers a solution to one of the most prominent technical challenges in the field, providing researchers with a new tool to build more complex and advanced biological traits, including traits that could enable plants to become scalable platforms for manufacturing high-value therapeutics and biologics. The method developed by the KAUST team is distinguished by the fact that, unlike many current methods, it does not require making cuts in the DNA before introducing genetic material, giving researchers more precise control over the addition of new traits.

Targeted Sites

Experiments have demonstrated its ability to reliably integrate full-length genes and large genetic elements into targeted sites within the genome in tobacco and rice plants, in the first practical demonstration of the success of this approach in plants. Although this work is still at the research stage, the new method paves the way for developing plants with more complex characteristics, capable of combining multiple beneficial traits or performing new biological functions.

Practical Demonstration

The study represents the first practical demonstration of the success of this approach in plants, expanding the range of tools available to researchers in plant biotechnology and molecular biomanufacturing. This achievement by KAUST opens new horizons for engineering plants with greater precision, and enhances scientists' ability to address some of the most complex genetic challenges, leading to more advanced future applications in agriculture and bioproduction.