Editorial: Overcoming genome editing challenges in plants: new tools and nanotechnologies.

Abstract

Genome editing has been an active research area for the last 2 decades (Carroll, 2021). As a result, we have witnessed many breakthroughs, from the development of designer nucleases to their use in microbes, animals, humans, and agricultural plants (Adli, 2018; Zhang et al., 2019; Anzalone et al., 2020; Li et al., 2023; Wang and Doudna, 2023). More recently, to improve the editing accuracy and precision and reduce dependence on the cell’s developmental state, new approaches, such as the OMEGA (obligate mobile element-guided activity), CAST (CRISPR-Cas-associated transposon), and INTEGRATE (insertion of transposable elements by guide RNA-assisted targeting), were developed and tested in different organisms (Tenjo-Castaño et al., 2022). Further, CRISPR technology was deployed in imaging, diagnostics (Wang and Doudna, 2023), and treatment of major human disorders (Wang and Doudna, 2023). Likewise, these technologies were deployed in agriculture to edit all major row crops, such as rice, wheat, maize, cotton, soybean, and horticultural crops like banana, tomato, apple, and poplar, for various traits from disease resistance to consumer preference traits (Zhu et al., 2020; FAO, 2023). Despite the revolutionary nature of genome-editing tools and the notable progress that these tools have enabled in plant improvement, there remain many challenges for the mainstream application of CRISPR technology in many plant species. Most of these challenges stem directly or indirectly from the cargo delivery and tissue culture-based plant regeneration bottlenecks (Rustgi et al.). Recent progress has been made in the delivery area through using nanomaterials and DNA/RNA viruses, along with notable improvements to the tissue culture process via developmental regulators, growth factors, and haploidy inducers, among many other approaches (Rustgi et al.). Given the remarkable amount of research on genome editing, there are still some bottlenecks, making it imperative to summarize the progress and identify areas that need further research. Keeping this goal in mind, we invited research and review papers from the leading research group in this workspace. After the extensive peer-review process, five articles that summarize the depth of the subject area were published. The articles published in this volume are briefly summarized below. OPEN ACCESS