Genome Editing in Soybean with CRISPR/Cas9

: CRISPR/Cas9 mediated genome editing technology has experienced rapid advances in recent years and has been applied to a wide variety of plant species, including soybean. Several platforms have been developed for designing and cloning of single CRISPR targets or multiple targets in a single destination vector. This chapter provides an updated working protocol for applying CRISPR/Cas9 technology to target a single gene or multiple genes simultaneously in soybean. We describe two platforms for cloning single CRISPR targets and multiplexing targets, respectively, and reagent delivery methodologies. The protocols address crucial limiting steps that can limit CRISPR editing in soybean hairy roots, composite plants, and tissue culture-based regenerated whole plants. To date, transgenic soybean plants with mutagenesis in up to three target genes have been obtained with this procedure.