Part 2 Making plants resistant to viruses by switching off a susceptibility gene
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- Michelle Pijpers (Deactivated)
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Also use CRISPR/Cas to make plants resistant to viruses. Read the Abstract and the Introduction of this article. Then answer the following questions:
13. The authors want to disable a gene with CRISPR/Cas9. Which gene?
14. This gene is necessary for infection by the virus. The gene makes the plant susceptible, and therefore we call this gene a 'susceptibility gene'. Is this a plant gene or a gene of the virus?
15. Compare the approach of Zhang et al. (2018) with that of J. Chandrasekaran et al. (2016) by making a series of figures. Use this to show in your poster presentation how in the different articles the virus resistance of the plant is created, using CRISPR/Cas.
16. How many alleles does cucumber have of this susceptibility gene? Does the plant become resistant when 1 allele is mutated of this gene? Why do the authors call this a recessive resistance, and not a dominant resistance?
17. Read Fig. 1A carefully, and read the caption. Why are the target sites of CRISPR/Cas9 in the exons of the gene, and not in the introns?
18. What would happen to the encoded protein if there is a deletion of, for example, 1 base in the DNA of the gene? And what if there is a deletion of 3 bases? How big is the deletion usually in Fig. 1C?
19. The authors made a transgenic cucumber with CRISPR/Cas9. Yet they speak in the title about 'non-transgenic cucumber'. Why?
20. The resistance appears to work against different types of viruses. What will be the similarity between these different types of viruses?