Targeted Genome Editing for Crop Improvement

Abstract

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Crop improvement is essential to attaining world food security and enhancing nutrition for human beings. Both conventional breeding and modern molecular breeding have contributed to increased crop production and quality. However, the time and resources for breeding practices have been limited. It takes a long time to bring a novel improved crop to the market, and the genetic sources from wild species cannot be always available for crops of our interests. Genome editing technology implemented molecular breeding can overcome those limitations of time and resource by facilitating the specific editing of plant genomes. However, there is a long-lasting argument about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In this review, we briefly summarize the principle of genome editing tools, focusing on the CRISPR/Cas9 system and the application of these tools to plants in the service of crop engineering.

Nanoscale Drug Delivery Systems: From Medicine to Agriculture

“…For instance, the use of encapsulated agrochemicals into nanocarriers to deliver pesticides to the desired crop to provide a focused delivery of the required dose (i.e., diminished application dosages), time-controlled release, and less eco-toxicity is not only an expanding area of research but a potential growth market (Slattery et al, 2019). Other areas within agriculture that could benefit from nano-encapsulation approaches include plant breeding (Kim et al, 2015), plant nutrition (Rai et al, 2015), growth promotion (Siddiqui and Al-Whaibi, 2015), disease control (Nuruzzaman et al, 2016), and post-harvest quality control (Yadollahi et al, 2010) to name a few. Conversely, agricultural materials such as cellulose (Bhandari et al, 2017(Bhandari et al, , 2018 and chitosan (Cai and Lapitsky, 2019) have been used as base materials to develop drug delivery systems.…”

Application of CRISPR/Cas9 technology to improve the important traits in coffee

“…The genome-editing mechanism of the systems relies on the ability of the protein to recognize specific DNA sites and the nuclease activity of the FokI domain to cleave the target sequence. [20]. Therefore, ZFNs and TALENs bind to DNA via protein and DNA interactions.…”

“…This characteristic can also reduce the occurrence of non-specific genome editing or off target effect [17]. Sequence specificity of ZFN technique is given by the DNA-binding domain of each polypeptide, and DNA cleavage is performed by the nuclease domain FokI [20].…”

Is there a future for genome-editing technologies in conservation?

“…RNA‐guided endonuclease; see Mei et al ., and Wright, Nuñez & Doudna, , for specific details). The CRISPR‐Cas9 technology has already been shown to have great potential to benefit humans in a variety of ways including improving crops (Kim et al ., ), eliminating disease (McLean & Jacobs‐Lorena, ) and targeted medical therapies (Savić & Schwank, ). There is no reason why the technology could not be used as a tool to support biodiversity conservation.…”