ABSTRACT
The four main site-directed nucleases used to date for genome editing-zinc finger nucleases, meganucleases, TALENs, and CRISPR is by far the most widely used. Along with the ease of engineering TALENs, there are three important features of TALENs distinct from CRISPR that make these reagents worth considering, described below. The chapter describes how TALENs work, discusses how they have been used in plant genome editing, and provides a brief overview of the workflow for a TALEN-mediated genome editing experiment. However, precise, HDR-based genome editing using TALENs has been successfully implemented. To date, approximately 60 genes including protein-coding and non-protein-coding genes have been targeted for editing using TALENs in plants. These examples, all achieved in the past several six or seven years, demonstrate the scope of potential uses of TALEN-based genome editing in plant breeding for crop improvement. In addition to determining the optimal TAL effector domain for efficient genome editing, researchers have tested TALENs with alternative nuclease domains.
