Gene editing in agriculture is moving well beyond row crops into specialty crops, animals and microbes, according to Pairwise, which reports a “dramatic uptick” in licensing deals for its Fulcrum CRISPR platform over the past 12 to 18 months. The company now has 25 licensees covering more than 30 species, and COO Ian Miller, PhD, says at least as many more are in discussion, including a large consumer goods company it cannot yet name.

Unlike transgenic crops, which carry DNA from another species and are regulated as GMOs, gene editing works within a plant’s own genes, and regulators in a growing number of markets treat the results as equivalent to conventional breeding. Miller pointed to Europe, where the EU has adopted a simpler framework for plants made with new genomic techniques. “The beauty of gene editing is that if it sits somewhere in the gene pool, you can bring it to bear for a problem,” he said.

Pairwise was founded in 2017 by Tom Adams, PhD, and Haven Baker, PhD, with CRISPR pioneers Feng Zhang, PhD, David Liu, PhD, and J. Keith Joung, PhD, and works with Bayer and Corteva on row crops, from short-stature corn to soybeans less susceptible to Asian soybean rust. Its licensees now include Agragene, developing sterile insects for pest control; animal genetics company Genus; CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, with a licence spanning livestock, aquaculture, microbes and plants; vegetable seed company Enza Zaden; ornamental grower Ball; and Mars, in cacao. Pairwise is working with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture on yam and has licensed its tools for cassava, cowpea and rice.

Miller describes Fulcrum as a word processor for DNA: a find function to locate the target, a delete key to knock out a gene, a tool to change a single letter, and find-and-replace to rewrite a stretch of sequence with a template. Pairwise has performed as many as 17 simultaneous edits. It licenses the whole toolbox under one agreement and one royalty rate, with a modest upfront fee, maintenance fees and royalties on commercial products, and can help with technology transfer. “You don’t have to get multiple licenses. We’re offering one-stop shopping,” he said.

Perennial and specialty crops, where a single cross can take five to ten years, are where Miller sees the biggest gains in speed. Pairwise has edited blackberries for a compact plant that triples density per acre, along with seedless and thornless fruit; the compact variety, bred originally by partner Plant Sciences Genetics, is now with commercial growers in Colombia, the pitless variety is in field trials, and a pitless cherry is under way with Sun World International. Miller does not expect editing to replace conventional breeding, which remains the way to move large numbers of genes at once.

Crops important to the global South have received a fraction of the genetics research spent on the major commodities, Miller acknowledged, but biological mechanisms are often conserved between species. The dwarfing and compactness work Pairwise has done in other crops now informs its yam project with IITA, a “flywheel effect” that raises the odds in each new crop. The hard limit, he said, is understanding which gene networks control complex traits such as drought, heat or salinity tolerance.

“What the shape of our pipeline tells you is that the opportunities for CRISPR in the future aren’t just focused on corn and soy,” Miller said. For breeders of staple and specialty crops in developing countries, cheaper, broader access to editing tools could shorten the path to varieties that took decades to produce by crossing alone.

Source: AgFunderNews