Genome Editing Applications in Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

Abstract

Abiotic stress, including extreme cold, drought, heat, salinity, heavy metals (HMs), etc., has a negative impact on the productivity and quality of the plant. Therefore, breeding tolerant crops are economical strategies to deal with these changing environmental conditions. Conventional methods of breeding are a very tedious process that requires some alternatives. Hence, the molecular approach of genetic modification emerged as a precise method for plant breeding in the past years. The genome is altered by removing, adding, or substituting DNA bases in the host genome. Different methods of genome editing have been developed, including transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas. These synthetic nucleases have enabled researchers to manipulate genes for desired traits in crop plants and show immense potential in generating cultivars resistant to climate change. Among these, CRISPR-Cas is widely adopted by the researchers and scientific community because of its simple design and low cost. In this chapter, we discuss genome editing applications in the development 56of abiotic stress-tolerant crop plants, genes involved in abiotic stress, and the importance of functional genomics in genome editing.