A decade of gene-editing tools is transforming how crops are bred
Li Z, Xiong X, Cao R, Li JF
Crispr
The disease-resistant tomatoes or drought-tolerant grains showing up at nurseries in coming years are increasingly built with these precision editing tools instead of decades of trial-and-error crossbreeding.
Scientists have spent the last ten years building an ever-more-precise toolkit for editing plant genes, starting with basic cut-and-paste CRISPR and now including tools that can swap single genetic letters, rewrite whole gene sequences, or turn genes on and off without changing the DNA at all. This review rounds up how those tools evolved and what plant breeders are now doing with them, from fixing crop diseases to engineering entirely new ways for plants to reproduce.
Key Findings
Traces CRISPR's plant biology impact back to four seminal early studies published in Plant Physiology
Reviews advances beyond simple gene knockout, including gene targeting, chromosome engineering, synthetic apomixis, and gene drive
Covers newer CRISPR-derived tools such as base editors, prime editors, and programmable transcriptional/epigenetic regulators
chevron_right Technical Summary
This review traces a decade of CRISPR gene-editing advances in plants, from early foundational studies to new tools that can precisely rewrite, regulate, and even drive genes through crop populations. It matters because these tools are speeding up the creation of hardier, more productive crop varieties without traditional slow breeding cycles.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Precision genetic manipulation: CRISPR toolkits reshape plant biology.
The emergence of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology has revolutionized plant genome engineering over the past decade. This review begins by highlighting f...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Crop-improvement refers to the systematic enhancement of plant varieties through selective breeding, genetic modification, and biotechnological approaches to develop cultivars with superior agronomic, nutritional, or environmental traits. This field is essential for addressing global food security,
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