Genome Editing of Plants

Genome editing in organisms via random mutagenesis is a naturally occurring phenomenon. As a technology, genome editing has evolved from the use of chemical and physical mutagenic agents capable of altering DNA sequences to biological tools such as designed sequence-specific nucleases (SSN) to produce knock-out (KO) or knock-in (KI) edits and Oligonucleotide Directed Mutagenesis (ODM) where specific nucleotide changes are made in a directed manner resulting in custom single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Cibus' SU Canola™, which the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) views as non-genetically modified (non-GM), is Cibus' first commercial product arising from plant genome editing and had its test launch in 2014. Regulatory aspects of the various genome editing tools will be discussed.