Shifting Paradigm Towards the Crops: From Model Plants to Crops and Employing the Genome Engineering to Target Traits

Abstract

Genome editing has become one of the most promising genetic engineering functional tools for crop traits improvement. As crops are the major staple food consumed globally and hence crop improvement in terms of yield and nutritional quality is requisite to feed a large population. Much work has been done for crop improvement using traditional breeding approaches yet because of the high labour and high time consumption, much faster methods are required. Also, the polyploidy of crops and the complex genome is still a bottleneck for improved trait development. Besides this, a difficult genetic transformation and low transformation efficiency are holding back the production of better crops. However, genome engineering has been proven to be an efficient and much faster biotechnological approach to overcome these challenges. The first-generation tools including zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) and transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN) have been employed to a precise genome manipulation. But, because of complicated protein engineering and being expensive techniques, much simpler tools are required. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology is the recent and revolutionary technique that can create a precise and targeted genetic manipulation in the genome. The recent advances in CRISPR have accelerated genetic engineering even in polyploid crop systems. In this chapter, we provide an insight into the development of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) system as a genome engineering tool and various types of native and modified CRISPR effector proteins and their different application. The major focus of the chapter is the use of CRISPR technology and its advancement for the plant trait modifications.