Cereal crop genome editing tools and their applications to sustainable agriculture

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture is essential to attain food security and address increasing climate change concerns. Population, abiotic and biotic stresses and limited agricultural water supplies and land are important barriers to cereal crops production, in addition to extreme weather. These factors influence their quality and productivity. Therefore, there is a pressing need for effective methods of food production under these conditions. For many individuals in low- and middle-income nations, cereals represent a key food source. Developing cereal crops with enhanced flexibility, high yields, and the ability to tolerate these biotic and abiotic problems is therefore essential. Modern OMICS techniques, next-generation sequencing, bioinformatics tools and the most recent improvements in genome editing tools (GET) have made targeted mutagenesis conceivable. By altering a crop variety's endogenous genome, which is free of any foreign genes, genome editing (GE) enhances the crop variety. Therefore, crops that have undergone GE but have not integrated foreign genes are not considered genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in a number of countries. GE is being used by researchers to promote the nutritional value of cereal crops and increase their tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. This review critically discusses the activities of GET, the role of bioinformatics tools and its application to sustainable agriculture for cereal crops.

Keywords

• bioinformatics tools
• cereals
• CRISPR
• genome editing
• gRNA design