Enhancing plant immunity by expression of pathogen-targeted CRISPR-Cas9 in plants

Abstract

Recent studies showed that CRISPR nucleases can boost plant immunity against infected virus by inducing the cleavage of viral dsDNA intermediate in a host plant. Here, we demonstrate that CRISPR-Cas9 can also improve plant resistance against a bacterial pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae, when sgRNAs that selectively target the bacterial genome are either transiently or constitutively expressed in plants. Our findings indicate that plant-expressed CRISPR-Cas9 components can transport into bacterial cells and disrupt the bacterial genome, suggesting a novel defense strategy against pathogens in plants, which could be widely applied regardless of the bacterial species.