TALEN utilization in rice genome modifications

Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), the newly developed and powerful genetic tools for precise genome editing, are fusion proteins of TAL effectors as DNA binding domains and the cleavage domain of FokI endonuclease. As a pair, the central repeat regions of TALENs determine the DNA binding specificity for the two sub-target sites; and the dimeric non-specific FokI cleavage domains cause a DNA double strand break (DSB) between the bound sequences. In vivo, cells repair the DSBs through either non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) pathway or homologous recombination (HR) pathway. Various methods have been developed for easy and fast assembly of TALEN genes for their utilization in a variety of eukaryotic cells or organisms. Here we present a TALEN-based rice genome modification protocol including constructing modularly assembled TALENs, rice transformation, and mutant screening.