Genome editing for healthy crops: traits, tools and impacts

Kubilay Yıldırım; Dragana Miladinović; Jeremy Sweet; Meleksen Akin; Vladislava Galović; Musa Kavas; Milica Zlatković; Eugenia de Andrade

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1231013

Genome editing for healthy crops: traits, tools and impacts

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Oct 27:14:1231013. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1231013. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Kubilay Yıldırım¹, Dragana Miladinović², Jeremy Sweet³, Meleksen Akin⁴, Vladislava Galović⁵, Musa Kavas⁶, Milica Zlatković⁵, Eugenia de Andrade^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, Türkiye.
² Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops, National Institute of Republic of Serbia, Novi Sad, Serbia.
³ Sweet Environmental Consultants, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Horticulture, Iğdır University, Iğdır, Türkiye.
⁵ Institute of Lowland Forestry and Environment (ILFE), University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
⁶ Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, Türkiye.
⁷ National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research (INIAV), I.P., Oeiras, Portugal.
⁸ GREEN-IT Bioresources for Sustainability, ITQB NOVA, Oeiras, Portugal.

Abstract

Crop cultivars in commercial use have often been selected because they show high levels of resistance to pathogens. However, widespread cultivation of these crops for many years in the environments favorable to a pathogen requires durable forms of resistance to maintain "healthy crops". Breeding of new varieties tolerant/resistant to biotic stresses by incorporating genetic components related to durable resistance, developing new breeding methods and new active molecules, and improving the Integrated Pest Management strategies have been of great value, but their effectiveness is being challenged by the newly emerging diseases and the rapid change of pathogens due to climatic changes. Genome editing has provided new tools and methods to characterize defense-related genes in crops and improve crop resilience to disease pathogens providing improved food security and future sustainable agricultural systems. In this review, we discuss the principal traits, tools and impacts of utilizing genome editing techniques for achieving of durable resilience and a "healthy plants" concept.

Keywords: CRISPR; crop improvement; crops; durable resistance; fungal, bacterial and virus infections; parasitic weeds; pathogens; resilience.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

DM acknowledges funding by the Science, Technological Development, and Innovations of the Republic of Serbia, grant number 451-03-47/2023-01/200032, by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia through IDEAS project “Creating climate smart sunflower for future challenges” (SMARTSUN), grant number 7732457, by the European Commission through Twinning Western Balkans project CROPINNO, grant number 101059784. VG and MZ acknowledge funding from the Ministry of Science, Technological Development, and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (contract no. 451-03-47/2023-01/200197). EA acknowledges funding from GREEN-IT Bioresources for Sustainability, ITQB NOVA, Av. da República, 2780-157 Oeiras, Portugal. This article is based upon work from COST Action PlantEd (CA18111), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).www.cost.eu.