Genetic Improvement in Leguminous Crops Through Genome Editing

Abstract

AbstractLeguminous crops belong to the Fabaceae family, known for their high nutritional properties and use for human and livestock consumption and for their ability to symbiotically fixing nitrogen which plays an important role in soil enrichment and sustainable agriculture. Over the years the genetic improvement of legumes has been carried out using conventional techniques of breeding based on the QTL and MAS selection mainly to increase the yield. Genome editing techniques have been successfully used in different legume crops, mainly on model crops and grain legumes such as chickpea, soybean and cowpea. The recent advancement in gene editing tools such as CRISPR-Cas technology contributed to the improvement of important agronomic traits in legume species and provide a great potential for studies of the traits such as tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress, increased yield and improvement of seed content chave recently been introduced in legumes utilizing genome editing tools. This chapter provides an overview of the main developments in genetic improvement methods applied and the achievements so far achieved in leguminous crops. Further studies aiming at the genetic improvement of minor or underutilized legumes are pivotal and a challenge in the future.