关键词: CRISPR/Cas9, 多重sgRNA串联, 基因组编辑, IAA2基因

Abstract: IAA2 is a member of the Aux/IAA auxin responsive gene family in Arabidopsis thaliana. No iaa2 mutant has been reported until now, thus hindering its further mechanistic investigations. The normal genomic editing technology of CRISPR/Cas9 (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9) uses only a single guide RNA (sgRNA) to target one site in a specific gene, and the gene knockout efficiency is not high. Instead, multiple sgRNAs can target multiple sites; therefore, the efficiency may be improved. In the present investigation, we used the golden-gate cloning strategy and two rounds of PCR reactions to combine three sgRNAs in the same entry vector. The final expression vector was obtained by LR reactions with the destination vector containing the Cas9 expression cassette. Four out of the six sgRNAs were effective, and we also obtained a lot of insertion and deletion mutations. Compared with one sgRNA approach, multiple sgRNAs displayed higher gene-knockout efficiency and produced more germ-line mutants. Thus, we established a more rapid and efficient method and generated five mutants for further studies of IAA2 functions.

Key words: CRISPR/Cas9, multiple sgRNAs, genome editing, IAA2