Genome Editing in Root and Tuber Crop Development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Saini H, Kumar R, Manjeet, Banothu S, Reddy SL
Crispr
Cassava and sweet potato feed hundreds of millions of people in Africa, and the same gene-editing breakthroughs being developed now could determine whether those crops survive the hotter, drier seasons already arriving in the decades ahead.
Researchers are using a powerful biological 'find and replace' tool called CRISPR to rewrite small parts of plant DNA, giving crops like cassava and yam new abilities — like fighting off deadly viruses or lasting longer after harvest. This review looks at what's been accomplished so far, where things are still stuck (getting the edits to actually take hold in plant cells is surprisingly hard), and how scientists are working around those obstacles without inserting foreign genes. The goal is crops that can handle a changing climate and feed people more reliably.
Key Findings
CRISPR/Cas9 has been applied to all four major root and tuber crops — potato, cassava, sweet potato, and yam — to engineer traits including disease resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, improved nutrition, and extended shelf life.
Low efficiency of plant cell transformation and regeneration remains a primary technical bottleneck, limiting how quickly edited varieties can be developed and deployed in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Emerging DNA-free and genotype-independent editing strategies may overcome both the technical transformation barrier and regulatory hurdles faced in countries that treat foreign-DNA insertion differently from native-gene edits.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists are using precise gene-editing tools to improve staple crops like cassava, potato, sweet potato, and yam — making them more resistant to disease, drought, and pests. This review outlines both the progress and the hurdles, especially for farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa who depend on these crops most.
Abstract Preview
Precision genome editing, particularly using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9), is advancing crop improvement by enabling targete...
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