Genetic improvement of tomato using gene editing technologies

Abstract

Genome editing technology has attracted attention as a rapid breeding technology for agricultural crops, and its development and use in a variety of crops has been studied. For tomato breeding, research on the development and use of genome editing technology has been vigorously conducted. Under such circumstances, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR associated proteins 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) technology, a genome editing technology, was utilised to develop a tomato that accumulates high levels of ɣ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a functional component in human health. In 2021, Japan was the first country in the world to market this tomato, making it the world’s first case of social implementation of CRISPR crops. This review summarises the current status of genome editing research to improve fruit quality, tolerance to abiotic stresses, and tolerance to biotic stresses as important breeding traits in tomato and discusses the challenges and solutions for the establishment of genome editing technology as a rapid breeding technology for tomato.