Researchers Demonstrate First Precision Gene Editing in Miscanthus
Department of Energy, Office of ScienceMiscanthus thrives on marginal lands with limited fertilization and tolerates drought and cool temperatures, making it an ideal bioenergy candidate. Previous efforts to genetically improve miscanthus focused on introducing external genes at random places in the plant’s genomes. This research developed gene-editing procedures using CRISPR/Cas9 that will allow scientists to selectively target existing genes to knock out their function and introduce new genes into precise locations.