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REVIEW article

Front. Genome Ed.
Sec. Genome Editing in Plants
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fgeed.2024.1401088
This article is part of the Research Topic Gene Editing to Achieve Zero Hunger View all 5 articles

The 4Fs of cotton: Genome editing of cotton for food, feed, fiber, and fuel to achieve zero hunger

Provisionally accepted
Muhammad Sulyman Saleem Muhammad Sulyman Saleem 1,2Sultan H. Khan Sultan H. Khan 1,2*Aftab Ahmad Aftab Ahmad 2,3Iqrar A. Rana Iqrar A. Rana 1,2Zunaira Afzal Naveed Zunaira Afzal Naveed 1,2Azeem Iqbal Khan Azeem Iqbal Khan 4
  • 1 Center of Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 2 US Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Agriculture and Food Security, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 3 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan
  • 4 Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Cotton is globally known for its high-priority cellulose-rich natural fiber. In addition to providing fiber for the textile industry, it is an important source material for edible oil, livestock feed, and fuel products. Global warming and the growing population are the major challenges to the world's agriculture and the potential risks to food security.In this context, improving output traits in cotton is necessary to achieve sustainable cotton production. During the last few years, high throughput omics techniques have aided in identifying crucial genes associated with traits of cotton fiber, seed, and plant architecture which could be targeted with more precision and efficiency through the CIRPSR/Cas-mediated genome editing technique. The various CRISPR/Cas systems such as CRISPR/Cas9, CRISPR/nCas9, and CRISPR/Cas12a have been employed to edit cotton genes associated with a wide range of traits including fiber length, flowering, leaf colour, rooting, seed oil, plant architecture, gossypol content, somatic embryogenesis, and biotic and abiotic stresses tolerance, highlighting its effectiveness in editing the cotton genome. Thus, CRISPR/Cas-mediated genome editing has emerged as a technique of choice to tailor crop phenotypes for better yield potential and environmental resilience. The review covers a comprehensive analysis of cotton phenotypic traits and their improvement with the help of the latest genome editing tools to improve fiber, food, feed, and fuel-associated genes of cotton to ensure food security.

    Keywords: Cotton, Fiber, Food, feed, fuel, Food security, Genome editing, CRISPR/Cas systems

    Received: 14 Mar 2024; Accepted: 27 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Saleem, Khan, Ahmad, Rana, Naveed and Khan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sultan H. Khan, Center of Agricultural Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Faisalabad, 38000, Punjab, Pakistan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.