Attaining the promise of plant gene editing at scale

Crop improvement relies heavily on genetic variation that arises spontaneously through mutation. Modern breeding methods are very adept at combining this genetic variation in ways that achieve remarkable improvements in plant performance. Novel traits have also been created through mutation breeding...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2021-06, Vol.118 (22), p.1
Main Authors: Nasti, Ryan A, Voytas, Daniel F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Biological Sciences
Breeding methods
CRISPR-Cas Systems
Crop improvement
Crops, Agricultural
Domestication
Flowers & plants
Gene Editing
Genetic diversity
Genetic modification
Genome editing
Genome, Plant
Meristems
Metabolism
Mutation
NAS on Life 2.0: The Promise and Challenge of a CRISPR Path to a Sustainable Planet
Plant Breeding
Plants, Genetically Modified - genetics
Progeny
Reagents
Reengineering
RNA editing
RNA viruses
Shoots
Somatic cells
Viruses
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Summary:Crop improvement relies heavily on genetic variation that arises spontaneously through mutation. Modern breeding methods are very adept at combining this genetic variation in ways that achieve remarkable improvements in plant performance. Novel traits have also been created through mutation breeding and transgenesis. The advent of gene editing, however, marks a turning point: With gene editing, synthetic variation will increasingly supplement and, in some cases, supplant the genetic variation that occurs naturally. We are still in the very early stages of realizing the opportunity provided by plant gene editing. At present, typically only one or a few genes are targeted for mutation at a time, and most mutations result in loss of gene function. New technological developments, however, promise to make it possible to perform gene editing at scale. RNA virus vectors, for example, can deliver gene-editing reagents to the germ line through infection and create hundreds to thousands of diverse mutations in the progeny of infected plants. With developmental regulators, edited somatic cells can be induced to form meristems that yield seed-producing shoots, thereby increasing throughput and shrinking timescales for creating edited plants. As these approaches are refined and others developed, they will allow for accelerated breeding, the domestication of orphan crops and the reengineering of metabolism in a more directed manner than has ever previously been possible.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2004846117