Abstract
The tools of synthetic biology have enormous potential to help us uncover the fundamental mechanisms controlling development and metabolism in plants. However, their effective utilization typically requires transgenesis, which is plagued by long timescales and high costs. In this review we explore how transgenesis can be minimized by delivering foreign genetic material to plants with systemically mobile and persistent vectors based on RNA viruses. We examine the progress that has been made thus far and highlight the hurdles that need to be overcome and some potential strategies to do so. We conclude with a discussion of biocontainment mechanisms to ensure these vectors can be used safely as well as how these vectors might expand the accessibility of plant synthetic biology techniques. RNA vectors stand poised to revolutionize plant synthetic biology by making genetic manipulation of plants cheaper and easier to deploy, as well as by accelerating experimental timescales from years to weeks.
Highlights
Synthetic biology promises to be transformative to biological science1 by providing two major new approaches to interrogate biological mechanisms
The broad host range of viral vectors means they could expand the use of plant synthetic biology beyond model species
Combining an expanded understanding of the mechanistic basis of plant virology with the engineering principles of synthetic biology will enable the construction of gene delivery tools that might one day obviate the need for transgenesis
Summary
Synthetic biology promises to be transformative to biological science1 by providing two major new approaches to interrogate biological mechanisms. In all these approaches the prodigious replication of RNA viruses is leveraged to maintain a gene coding sequence inserted into the viral genome at high concentration and enable strong protein expression. Recent work by Torti et al (2021) demonstrated that single genes could be delivered to a range of plants via RNA viral vectors to create several different agronomically important traits including dwarfing and flowering time.
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