Genome Editing for Metabolic Engineering in Plants

Abstract

Metabolic engineering is a set of powerful methodologies that involve molecular characterization of biochemical pathways and processes, its careful modification with the help of modern genetic engineering tools with the aim of developing novel/modified product, new biological pathway, changing cellular physiology or ultimately phenotypes. Classically, metabolic engineering has been revolving around the strain improvement in microbes or cells having a simpler industrial importance like the production of vaccines, pharmaceuticals or secondary metabolites. The scope of metabolic engineering in plants has widely been explored throughout the globe, and a large number of reports related to it are available. Onset of OMICS era has enabled a better insight into the novelty and bottleneck of various metabolic pathways through transcriptome, proteome and metabolome. Nowadays, the integrated use of modern analytical strategies, databases, protein designing tools and recombinant DNA technology tools has enabled the speedy and directed metabolic engineering in microbial, animal as well as plant cells even for complex traits. Arrival and rapid percolation of genome editing tools for sequence-specific mutagenesis in a very precise and efficient manner has opened an exciting avenue for the modification of various diverse traits in plants. Ease of specific targeting of nucleases and other proteins, and multiplexing potential and recent optimization tools for minimizing off-targets are of great utility. Furthermore, the challenges and opportunities of future agriculture require engineering of higher-yielding, nutritious, resource-use efficient, climate smart crops as well as plants with industrial importance. Hence, metabolic engineering through genome editing can serve the purpose. This chapter assesses history, recent progress and future perspective of metabolic engineering in plants using modern approaches and tools like genome editing.