• CRISPR/Cas9‑mediated knockout of SPL13 radically increases lettuce yield 

      Beracochea, Valeria Cecilia; Stritzler, Margarita; Radonic, Laura Mabel; Bottero, Ana Emilia; Jozefkowicz, Cintia; Darqui, Flavia Soledad; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Lopez Bilbao, Marisa Gisela; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Springer, 2022-12)
      Cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) is a diploid (2n = 2x = 18), autogamous species. This popular leafy vegetable is considered one of the first crops (Guo et al. 2022). Currently, lettuce is the third most consumed ...
    • Efficient CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in alfalfa using a public germplasm 

      Bottero, Ana Emilia; Massa, Gabriela Alejandra; Gonzalez, Matías Nicolás; Stritzler, Margarita; Tajima, Hiromi; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Frare, Romina Alejandra; Feingold, Sergio Enrique; Blumwald, Eduardo; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Frontiers Media, 2021-07)
      Because its ability to acquire large amounts of nitrogen by symbiosis, tetraploid alfalfa is the main source of vegetable proteins in meat and milk production systems in temperate regions. Alfalfa cultivation also adds ...
    • Expanding the benefits of Tnt1 for the identification of dominant mutations in polyploid crops: A single allelic mutation in the MsNAC39 gene produces multifoliated alfalfa 

      Jozefkowicz, Cintia; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Odorizzi, Ariel; Iantcheva, Anelia; Ratet, Pascal; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Frontiers Media, 2022-04)
      Most major crops are polyploid species and the production of genetically engineered cultivars normally requires the introgression of transgenic or gene-edited traits into elite germplasm. Thus, a main goal of plant research ...
    • Exploring the role of the NO‑detoxifying enzyme HmpA in the evolution of domesticated Alfalfa Rhizobia 

      Frare, Romina Alejandra; Pascuan, Cecilia Gabriela; Galindo Sotomonte, Luisa Fernanda; McCormick, Wayne; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel (Springer, 2022-02)
      We have previously shown the extensive loss of genes during the domestication of alfalfa rhizobia and the high nitrous oxide emission associated with the extreme genomic instability of commercial inoculants. In the present ...
    • Generation of a multi‑herbicide‑tolerant alfalfa by using base editing 

      Bottero, Ana Emilia; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Stritzler, Margarita; Tajima, Hiromi; Frare, Romina Alejandra; Pascuan, Cecilia Gabriela; Blumwald, Eduardo; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Springer, 2022-02)
      We present the first report on base editing in alfalfa. Specifically, we showed edited alfalfa with tolerance to both sulfonylurea- and imidazolinone-type herbicides. Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is one of the most important ...
    • Multiple challenges in the development of commercial crops using CRISPR technology 

      Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Elsevier, 2023-10)
      The CRISPR/Cas system is a highly efficient and versatile tool for editing plant genomes, with the potential to accelerate breeding programs and improve the sustainability of food production. Nevertheless, technical ...
    • Multiple ways to evade the bacteriostatic action of glyphosate in rhizobia include the mutation of the conserved serine 90 of the nitrogenase subunit NifH to alanine 

      Liebrenz, Karen Ivana; Frare, Romina Alejandra; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Pascuan, Cecilia Gabriela; Brambilla, Silvina Maricel; Soldini, Diego Omar; Maguire, Vanina; Carrio, Alejandro Javier; Ruiz, Oscar; McCormick, Wayne; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel (Elsevier, 2022-07)
      The genome resequencing of spontaneous glyphosate-resistant mutants derived from the soybean inoculant E109 allowed identifying genes most likely associated with the uptake (gltL and cya) and metabolism (zigA and betA) of ...
    • Rapid and cloning‑free screening of edited alfalfa via next‑generation sequencing 

      Stritzler, Margarita; Pascuan, Cecilia Gabriela; Bottero, Ana Emilia; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Frare, Romina Alejandra; Puebla, Andrea Fabiana; Tajima, Hiromi; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Blumwald, Eduardo; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Springer, 2022-07)
      The identification of full knockout plants is frequently the rate-limiting step of the research and commercial projects searching the complete loss of the function of target genes via the CRISPR/Cas9 system. This problem ...
    • Retrotransposon and CRISPR/Cas9‑mediated knockout of NOD26 impairs the legume‑rhizobia symbiosis 

      Frare, Romina Alejandra; Stritzler, Margarita; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Tajima, Hiromi; Pascuan, Cecilia Gabriela; López Fernández, María Paula; Bottero, Ana Emilia; Nikel, Pablo I.; Alleva, Karina Edith; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Blumwald, Eduardo; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Springer, 2022-07)
      The multifunctional channel NOD26, identified and extensively studied (both biochemically and biophysically) in soybean, is a major protein component of the symbiosome membrane. The water and ammonia transport activities ...
    • Spontaneous Mutations in the Nitrate Reductase Gene napC Drive the Emergence of Eco-friendly Low-N2O-Emitting Alfalfa Rhizobia in Regions with Different Climates 

      Brambilla, Silvina Maricel; Soto, Gabriela; Odorizzi, Ariel; Arolfo, Valeria; McCormick, Wayne; Primo, Emiliano; Giordano, Walter; Jozefkowicz, Cintia; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel (Springer, 2020)
      We have recently shown that commercial alfalfa inoculants (e.g., Sinorhizobium meliloti B399), which are closely related to the denitrifier model strain Sinorhizobium meliloti 1021, have conserved nitrate, nitrite, and ...
    • Subfunctionalization probably drives the emergence of plant growth‑promoting genes 

      Frare, Romina Alejandra; Mozzicafreddo, Matteo; Gomez, Maria Cristina; Fussoni, Nerina Belen; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel (Springer, 2022-07)
      The duplication and divergence of stress-related genes might help microbes adapt to different environments. However, little is known about this type of subfunctionalization process in microbes. We here examined the evolution ...
    • The Gln15Arg mutation in the transcriptional factor PALM1 produces multifoliate alfalfa 

      Gomez, Maria Cristina; Jozefkowicz, Cintia; Mozzicafreddo, Matteo; Odorizzi, Ariel; Arolfo, Valeria; Basigalup, Daniel Horacio; Ayub, Nicolás Daniel; Soto, Gabriela Cynthia (Springer, 2022-12)
      The CRISPR/Cas9 system has proven to be highly valuable for genome editing in several important crops, including the allogamous tetraploid cultivated alfalfa (Medicago sativa). However, the fact that most of the beneficial ...