Abstract
Horticultural crops provide humans with many valuable products. The improvement of the yield and quality of horticultural crops has been receiving increasing research attention. Given the development and advantages of genome-editing technologies, research that uses genome editing to improve horticultural crops has substantially increased in recent years. Here, we briefly review the different genome-editing systems used in horticultural research with a focus on clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated 9 (Cas9)-mediated genome editing. We also summarize recent progress in the application of genome editing for horticultural crop improvement. The combination of rapidly advancing genome-editing technology with breeding will greatly increase horticultural crop production and quality.
Highlights
As an important branch of agriculture, horticulture originated thousands of years ago and has developed greatly during the course of human history
Horticultural crops are generally considered to include vegetable and fruit crops as well as floricultural and ornamental plants, which are cultivated for food, for nutritional and medical use, and for esthetic enjoyment[1]
Vegetable and fruit crops are low in calories but contain high levels of vitamins and minerals[2], making them indispensable for balancing our daily diet
Summary
To obtain genetic resources with diverse characteristics for breeding, both spontaneous and induced mutations have been commonly used[60]. Most genome-editing studies on plants have been carried out in model systems and staple crops[44–46], but the application of genome editing to horticultural crops is rapidly increasing[61]. The number of studies involving genome editing in horticulture has exponentially increased (Fig. 2a, Table 2), and CRISPR-based systems dominate. Studies that focus on the improvement of the CRISPR/Cas[9] system in horticultural crops frequently use marker/reporter genes as targets such as phytoene desaturase (PDS), whose mutation results in an albino phenotype (Fig. 2b). In potato, when the vacuolar invertase gene was disrupted by TALEN, the cold storage and processing of tubers were improved[71] Another recent study in potato showed the possibility of overcoming self-incompatibility by editing the S-RNase gene, which would provide an alternative method of propagation through seeds[72]. Functional characterization of genes in different crops will help to identify valuable targets that could be edited for potential horticultural improvement, such as increased productivity, marketing quality, and nutritional value
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