A revolution toward gene-editing technology and its application to crop improvement

Sunny Ahmar, Sumbul Saeed, Muhammad Hafeez Ullah Khan, Shahid Ullah Khan, Freddy Mora-Poblete, Muhammad Kamran, Aroosha Faheem, Ambreen Maqsood, Muhammad Rauf, Saba Saleem, Woo Jong Hong, Ki Hong Jung

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

82 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Genome editing is a relevant, versatile, and preferred tool for crop improvement, as well as for functional genomics. In this review, we summarize the advances in gene-editing techniques, such as zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like (TAL) effector nucleases (TALENs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) associated with the Cas9 and Cpf1 proteins. These tools support great opportunities for the future development of plant science and rapid remodeling of crops. Furthermore, we discuss the brief history of each tool and provide their comparison and different applications. Among the various genome-editing tools, CRISPR has become the most popular; hence, it is discussed in the greatest detail. CRISPR has helped clarify the genomic structure and its role in plants: For example, the transcriptional control of Cas9 and Cpf1, genetic locus monitoring, the mechanism and control of promoter activity, and the alteration and detection of epigenetic behavior between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) investigated based on genetic traits and related genome-wide studies. The present review describes how CRISPR/Cas9 systems can play a valuable role in the characterization of the genomic rearrangement and plant gene functions, as well as the improvement of the important traits of field crops with the greatest precision. In addition, the speed editing strategy of gene-family members was introduced to accelerate the applications of gene-editing systems to crop improvement. For this, the CRISPR technology has a valuable advantage that particularly holds the scientist’s mind, as it allows genome editing in multiple biological systems.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5665
Pages (from-to)1-28
Number of pages28
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume21
Issue number16
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Aug 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors.

Keywords

  • CRISPR/Cas9
  • CRISPR/Cpf1
  • Crop improvement
  • Genome editing
  • Speed editing strategy
  • TALEN

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