Implementation of New Plant Breeding Techniques for dietary inulin

Inulin is a dietary fiber with health-promoting characteristics mainly targeted on gut health. Inulin is extracted from root chicory and used in many food products. The yield and the length of the inulin molecule determines the value and health-beneficial character of this compound. Using NPBT we want to increase both the yield and the length of inulin. The natural production of terpenes in chicory makes the inulin extraction method less efficient and more costly. The other goal of WP2 is to reduce the production of natural chicory terpenes.  

The work done during the first two years of the project CHIC shows that we could generate mutant chicory plants in which the genes encoding  the inulin break-down enzymes are blocked using genome editing techniques thanks to the small alteration the CRISPR tools made in the plant DNA. All mutated plants have been analyzed in great detail on DNA level using various methods.