Genome Editing for Speed Breeding of Horticultural Crops

Abstract

Climate change is one of the burdensome factors of agricultural productivity. Adverse biotic and abiotic stress impacts directly on plants resulting in poor productivity and yield loss. Modern protocols in genome editing using CRISPR, TALENs, ZFNs and Meganucleases enable editing at the precise site. The versatility of genome editing tools makes its application useful in fields like crop improvement, gene functional analyses, pathway research, studying animal models, genetic analyses, epigenetic research, drug development and biofuels research etc. The technological advancements in genome editing are adopted in both monocots and dicots for crop improvement. These technologies are precise, independent of breeding limitations like unexplored germplasm resources and reduce breeding cycles drastically from decades to years to meet the global requirements. The application of genome editing in agriculture proves to be a potential source for developing crops with biotic and abiotic stress, improved yield with better nutritional qualities.