CRISPR/Cas-mediated germplasm improvement and new strategies for crop protection

Abstract

Global agriculture and food security are encountering unprecedented challenges from both the ever-growing population and rapidly changing climate conditions. CRISPR/Cas-mediated genome editing technology has revolutionized plant functional genetic research and precision crop breeding with robustness, high target specificity and programmability. Furthermore, numerous emerging biotechnologies based on the CRISPR/Cas platform provide the opportunity to create new crop germplasms with durable resistance against disease or insect pests, herbicide tolerance, and other stress-tolerant improvements, reshaping crop protection to increase agricultural resilience and sustainability. In this review, we briefly describe the CRISPR/Cas toolbox, including base editing, prime editing, compact genome manipulation, transcriptional regulation and epigenetic editing, and then overview the most important applications of CRISPR/Cas-mediated crop genetic improvement, highlighting crop protection-based stress resistance engineering. In addition, we enumerate global regulations on genome-edited crops. Finally, we discuss some bottlenecks facing this cutting-edge technology and infinite possibilities for the future.