Engineering Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants through CRISPR Genome Editing

Abstract

Environmental abiotic stresses challenge food security by depressing crop yields often exceeding 50% of their annual production. Different methods, including conventional as well as genomic-assisted breeding, mutagenesis, and genetic engineering have been utilized to enhance stress resilience in several crop species. Plant breeding has been partly successful in developing crop varieties against abiotic stresses owning to the complex genetics of the traits as well as the narrow genetic base in the germplasm. Irrespective of the fact that genetic engineering can transfer gene(s) from any organism(s), transgenic crops have become controversial mainly due to the potential risk of transgene-outcrossing. Consequently, the cultivation of transgenic crops is banned in certain countries, particularly in European countries. In this scenario, the discovery of the CRISPR tool provides a platform for producing transgene-free genetically edited plants—similar to the mutagenized crops that are not extensively regulated such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Thus, the genome-edited plants without a transgene would likely go into the field without any restriction. Here, we focused on the deployment of CRISPR for the successful development of abiotic stress-tolerant crop plants for sustaining crop productivity under changing environments.

Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles Improve Soybean Yield and Enhance Nitrogen Assimilation

“…Phytohormones are signaling molecules that play crucial roles in plant growth and modulate plant adaption to various environmental conditions, including abiotic and biotic stresses. , We examined nine major phytohormones in plant leaves, including ABA, IAA, ZR, GA4, GA3, DH-ZR, JA-ME, BR, and IPA. In general, n-NiO at 50 mg kg –1 significantly increased the content of six phytohormones in leaves (IAA, GA4, GA3, DH-ZR, JA-ME and BR), whereas b-NiO (IAA and DH-ZR) and NiSO 4 (IAA and GA4) each only increased the amount of two analytes (Table S4).…”

Targeted genome editing in polyploids: lessons from Brassica

“…In addition to yield losses, biotic factors including fungus, bacteria, viruses, nematodes and insect attacks also deteriorate the crop produce quality ( Giudice et al., 2021 ). The changing climatic patterns (which includes early and long high temperature regimes, unexpected heavy rainfalls, cloud bursts, severe winters) coupled with drought, salinity and heavy metal toxicity altogether pose a severe threat to global agricultural production and food security ( Rahman et al., 2022 ). Therefore, development of stress-resilient crops is the need of the hour to ensure global food security and meet the UN’s target of a 60-70% increase in the agricultural crop production by 2050.…”

Antioxidant Agriculture for Stress-Resilient Crop Production: Field Practice

“…However, transgenic crops continue to face regulatory and societal challenges in many countries due to potential risks to human health and the environment. A promising solution to this issue is transgene-free genome editing technology, which is gaining increasing interest as it does not leave any trace of foreign DNA or editing components in the plant genome [24,27]. Similar to mutagenized crops created using chemical or physical agents to induce random mutations, genome-edited plants without a transgene can be readily introduced into the field without restrictions.…”