Conferring DNA virus resistance with high specificity in plants using virus-inducible genome-editing system

The CRISPR/Cas9 system has recently been engineered to confer resistance to geminiviruses in plants. However, we show here that the usefulness of this antiviral strategy is undermined by off-target effects identified by deep sequencing in Arabidopsis . We construct two virus-inducible CRISPR/Cas9 vectors that efficiently inhibit beet severe curly top virus (BSCTV) accumulation in both transient assays ( Nicotiana benthamiana ) and transgenic lines ( Arabidopsis ). Deep sequencing detects no off-target effect in candidate sites of the transgenic Arabidopsis . This kind of virus-inducible genome-editing system should be widely applicable for generating virus-resistant plants without off-target costs.