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2026-02-17 11:39:10
[my country Achieves Another Breakthrough in Independently Developed Gene Editing Tools, Boosting Rice Breeding Efficiency by Over 4 Times] The Crop Precision Breeding Technology Innovation Team at the Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has recently achieved a significant breakthrough. Based on Cas12i3, a gene editing tool with independent intellectual property rights in my country, they have successfully developed a novel base editing system and used this system to create new herbicide-resistant rice germplasm. Cas12i3, as a gene editing tool independently developed in my country, has unique advantages over mainstream foreign tools, such as smaller size and wider applicability. However, adenine base editors based on Cas12i3 had not yet been successfully developed, and cytosine base editors had low editing efficiency in plants. This research team constructed five different versions of base editors and conducted a systematic evaluation. One architecture combining two specific functional units performed optimally, significantly improving the base editing efficiency of adenine and cytosine while expanding the base editing window. In stably inherited rice plants, the optimized base editing tool increased the original editing efficiency by 4.78 times and 3.35 times, respectively. Industry experts believe that this research provides important tools and technical support for crop gene function analysis and precise genetic improvement. The relevant research results have recently been published in the international academic journal *Acta Botanica Sinica*.
