Scientists have created CRISPR pollen - it can independently edit plants around the world

Most often, plant cells are surrounded by a fairly rigid cellulose shell, which complicates their genetic

editing. In some cases, scientists have been able to change plant DNA by destroying this shell, but more often than not, direct CRISPR editing has failed in plants.

Scientists from Syngenta using haploidinduction — when pollen fertilizes an egg, without transferring its genetic material to it — changed its DNA, as haploid plants carry only one set of chromosomes.

Researchers embed modified maize cells in a different variety of this plant.

During the experiment, biologists have introduced into the pollenmaize guide RNA and Cas9 enzyme aimed at genes that are responsible for grain size. After that, pollinated varieties pollinated varieties that are resistant to direct CRISPR — as a result, cells with a modified genome penetrated the plant eggs and changed their properties.

"High-tech" understood in detail why almost all countries forbid experiments with editing genes in humans, as well as how the He experiment influenced all of world science.