Conditional manipulation of gene expression is a key approach to investigating the primary function of a gene in a biological process. While conditional and cell-type-specific overexpression systems exist for plants, there are currently no systems available to disable a gene completely and conditionally. Here, we present a new tool with which target genes can efficiently and conditionally be knocked out by genome editing at any developmental stage. Target genes can also be knocked out in a cell-type-specific manner. Our tool is easy to construct and will be particularly useful for studying genes having null alleles that are non-viable or show pleiotropic developmental defects.

基因表达的条件操作是研究基因在生物过程中的主要功能的关键方法。虽然植物存在条件性和细胞类型特异性的过表达系统，但目前还没有系统可用于完全和有条件地禁用基因。在这里，我们提出了一种新工具，可以在任何发育阶段通过基因组编辑有效且有条件地敲除靶基因。靶基因也可以以细胞类型特异性的方式被敲除。我们的工具易于构建，对于研究具有无活力或表现出多效性发育缺陷的无效等位基因的基因特别有用。