Plant pathologist Yinong Yang at Penn State University used the versatile gene-editing tool called CRISPR-Cas9 to design a button mushroom that resists browning and may have a longer shelf life.
CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. It's a relatively new and revolutionary way to modify an organism's genome by precisely delivering a DNA-cutting enzyme — Cas9 — to a targeted region of DNA. The resulting modification can delete or replace specific DNA pieces, thereby promoting or disabling certain traits.
In this case, the gene editing reduces production of a specific enzyme that causes mushrooms to turn brown. The end product is a mushroom with longer shelf life that resists blemishes caused by handling or mechanical harvesting — but without DNA from a foreign organism.
NIFA supported the program through the Hatch Act.
Read more at Penn State.
Want to read about more impacts like this? Check out Fresh from the Field, a weekly bulletin showcasing transformative impacts made by grantees funded by NIFA.
