Targeted base editing in the plastid genome of Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract

Bacterial cytidine deaminase fused to the DNA binding domains of transcription activator-like effector nucleases was recently reported to transiently substitute a targeted C to a T in mitochondrial DNA of mammalian cultured cells1. We applied this system to targeted base editing in the Arabidopsis thaliana plastid genome. The targeted Cs were homoplasmically substituted to Ts in some plantlets of the T1 generation and the mutations were inherited by their offspring independently of their nuclear-introduced vectors.