Plant gene editing through de novo induction of meristems

Plant gene editing is usually carried out by delivering reagents such as Cas9 and sgRNAs to explants in culture. Edited cells are then induced to differentiate into whole plants by exposure to various hormones. Creating edited plants through tissue culture is often inefficient, requires considerable time, only works with limited species and genotypes and causes unintended changes to the genome and epigenome. We report methods to generate gene edited dicotyledonous plants through de novo meristem induction. Developmental regulators and gene editing reagents are delivered to somatic cells on whole plants. Meristems are induced that produce shoots with targeted DNA modifications, and gene edits are transmitted to the next generation. The de novo induction of gene edited meristems sidesteps the need for tissue culture, promising to overcome a bottleneck in plant gene-editing.