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Establishment of efficient Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) protoplast isolation and transient expression condition

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A Correction to this article was published on 12 December 2022

A Correction to this article was published on 18 September 2022

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Abstract

There has been a significant increase in interest in Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) plants for the production of secondary metabolites (i.e., cannabinoids and terpenoids), which could have medicinal benefits for human health. Genetic engineering technology will allow us to unlock the potential uses of cannabis plants. Although a protoplast system is a powerful tool for gene function analysis and genome editing, the lack of an established protocol that may offer acceptable yield and quality of protoplast isolation from Cannabis is a major obstacle. In this study, we established a combination of digestion solutions for successful protoplast isolation from Cannabis. The highest yield (9.7 × 106 per g of fresh leaf weight) was obtained using the protocol composed of optimal mannitol concentration (0.4 M), enzyme combination (1.5% cellulase, 0.4% macerozyme, and 1.0% pectolyase), and vacuum-permeating treatment. Notably, the transformation efficiency of Cannabis protoplast was approximately 55.3% when transformed with p35S: GFP construct. Using the protoplast preparation and transformation methods established in this study, we revealed that CsCBCAS, CsCBDAS, and CsTHCAS proteins exhibit punctate subcellular localization patterns that may arise from membrane-bound organelles.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea (Grant No. 2020R1I1A1A01072914 to Y.-C. Kim), the Rural Development Administration (RDA) (PJ01532503 to J.H. Lee), Promotion (No. 1425151434) of Innovation Businesses for Regulation-Free Special Zones funded by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS, Korea), and the Technology Innovation Program (20012892) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE, Korea). The authors thank Ms. Yun Young Choi, Center for University-wide Research Facilities (CURF) at Jeonbuk National University, for confocal microscopic observations.

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Correspondence to Hyun Joo Shim, Jeong Hwan Lee or Young-Cheon Kim.

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Kim, A.L., Yun, Y.J., Choi, H.W. et al. Establishment of efficient Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) protoplast isolation and transient expression condition. Plant Biotechnol Rep 16, 613–619 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-022-00786-6

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