GE-Flex II sugarcane was developed by editing the BAHD05 gene using CRISPR/Cas9.

The intended phenotype of GE-Flex II sugarcane lines is a higher concentration of sugars. This improves energy recovery from sugarcane biomass which is beneficial in biofuel production and animal nutrition.

The edited gene BAHD05 encodes for an acyl transferase, responsible for the incorporation of ferulic acid (FA) and para-coumaric acid (pCA) into the cell wall of grasses. High FA and pCA contents inhibit cell wall deconstruction and the release of fermentable sugars.

To suppress BAHD05, the developers transiently expressed two gRNAs complementary to the first exon of the BAHD05 gene.

GE-Flex II lines produced by gene editing were screened by PCR to be free of transgene sequences.

Source:

• CTNBio technical opinion 7836/2021 (machine translation of the document)