Knocking Out MicroRNA Genes in Rice with CRISPR-Cas9.

BACKGROUND MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that play important roles in plant development and stress responses. Loss-of-function analysis of miRNA genes has been traditionally challenging due to lack of appropriate knockout tools. In this chapter, we describe a method of using CRISPR-Cas9 for knocking out microRNA genes in rice by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. We also demonstrate single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) as an effective genotyping method for screening CRISPR-Cas9-induced mutations.