Issei Nakazato

Plastids (including chloroplasts) and mitochondria are remnants of endosymbiotic bacteria, yet they maintain their own genomes, which encode vital components for photosynthesis and respiration, respectively. Organellar genomes have distinctive features, such as being present as multicopies, being mostly inherited maternally, having characteristic genomic structures and undergoing frequent homologous recombination. To date, it has proven to be challenging to modify these genomes. For example, while CRISPR/Cas9 is a widely used system for editing nuclear genes, it has not yet been successfully applied to organellar genomes. Recently, however, precise gene-editing technologies have been successfully applied to organellar genomes. Protein-based enzymes, especially transcription activator–like effector nucleases (TALENs) and artificial enzymes utilizing DNA-binding domains of TALENs (TALEs), have been successfully used to modify these genomes by harnessing organellar-targeting signals. This short review introduces and discusses the use of targeted nucleases and base editors in organellar genomes, their effects and their potential applications in plant science and breeding.