Genome Editing in Plants: An Overview of Tools and Applications

Abstract

The emergence of genome manipulation methods promises a real revolution in biotechnology and genetic engineering. Targeted editing of the genomes of living organisms not only permits investigations into the understanding of the fundamental basis of biological systems but also allows addressing a wide range of goals towards improving productivity and quality of crops. This includes the creation of plants with valuable compositional properties and with traits that confer resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. During the past few years, several novel genome editing systems have been developed; these include zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas9 (CRISPR/Cas9). These exciting new methods, briefly reviewed herein, have proved themselves as effective and reliable tools for the genetic improvement of plants.

Agricultural GMOs—What We Know and Where Scientists Disagree

“…Traits currently under investigation include, among others, herbicide resistance, drought tolerance, improved nutritional content, salt resistance, and resistance to biotic stress [16]. Because it is more precise and predictable than earlier technologies that relied on the introduction of transgenes, gene edited crops may prove to be more acceptable to the public than were earlier GMOs [10].…”

PANOMICS meets germplasm

“…Genome editing technologies enable precise manipulation of specific genomic sequences. With the help of these approaches, a point mutation (deletion or insertion), gene knockouts, activation or repression of genes and epigenetic changes are possible (Kamburova et al , 2017). Such technologies rely on sequence‐specific nucleases (SSNs), and with the help of molecular tools, DNA double‐strand breaks (DSBs) are created at the desired location within the genome.…”

“…Such technologies rely on sequence‐specific nucleases (SSNs), and with the help of molecular tools, DNA double‐strand breaks (DSBs) are created at the desired location within the genome. In contrast to the transgenic approach, which leads to random insertions generating random phenotypes, genome editing methods generate defined mutants, thus becoming a potent tool for functional genomics and crop breeding (Kamburova et al , 2017; Malzahn et al , 2017). First‐generation genome editing technologies include several sequence‐specific nucleases such as meganucleases, zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) and TAL effector nucleases (TALENs), which rely on just one or two non‐elite genotypes that are susceptible to regeneration from plant tissue culture and transformation.…”

Groundnut (Arachis hypogaeaL.) improvement in sub-Saharan Africa: a review

“…Genome editing is used to obtain new allelic forms which is targeted gene modification to obtain a generation of new allelic variants in the genomes of cultivated individuals (David and Repkova 2017). Various novel genome editing tools have been developed including zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/Cas9 (CRISPR/ Cas9) (Kamburova et al 2017). These tools make double-strand breaks (DSB) in DNA followed by repairing employing error-prone non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) or homology directed repair (HDR) mechanism which leads to mutation in specific location in the genome (Mishra and Zhao 2018).…”