Progresses of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in forage crops.

Ul Haq SI, Zheng D, Feng N, Jiang X, Qiao F, He JS, Qiu QS

Published: 14 November 2022 in Journal of plant physiology
Keywords: Breeding, CRISPR/Cas9, Forages, Genome editing
Pubmed ID: 36371870
DOI: 10.1016/j.jplph.2022.153860

The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) mediated-genome editing has evolved into a powerful tool that is widely used in plant species to induce editing in the genome for analyzing gene function and crop improvement. CRISPR/Cas9 is an RNA-guided genome editing tool consisting of a Cas9 nuclease and a single-guide RNA (sgRNA). The CRISPR/Cas9 system enables more accurate and efficient genome editing in crops. In this review, we summarized the advances of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology in plant genome editing and its applications in forage crops. We described briefly about the development of CRISPR/Cas9 technology in plant genome editing. We assessed the progress of CRISPR/Cas9-mediated targeted-mutagenesis in various forage crops, including alfalfa, Medicago truncatula, Hordeum vulgare, Sorghum bicolor, Setaria italica and Panicum virgatum. The potentials and challenges of CRISPR/Cas9 in forage breeding were discussed.