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REVIEW article
Front. Genome Ed.
Sec. Genome Editing in Plants
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgeed.2025.1533197
This article is part of the Research Topic Genome Editing for Addressing the Challenges of Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture Crops and Livestock View all articles
CRISPR/Cas9: A sustainable technology to Enhance Climate Resilience in Major Staple Crops
Provisionally accepted- 1 United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
- 2 Integrative Agriculture Department, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, United Arab Emirates University, AlAin, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- 3 College of Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
- 4 Department of Plant Pathology, College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
- 5 National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali, Punjab, India
Climate change is a global concern for agriculture, food security, and human health. It affects several crops and causes drastic losses in yield, leading to severe disturbances in the global economy, environment, and community. The consequences on important staple crops, such as rice, maize, and wheat, will worsen and create food insecurity across the globe. Although various methods of trait improvements in crops are available and are being used, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) mediated genome manipulation have opened a new avenue for functional genomics and crop improvement. This review will discuss the progression in crop improvement from conventional breeding methods to advanced genome editing techniques and how the CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be applied to enhance the tolerance of the main cereal crops (wheat, rice, and maize) against any harsh climates. CRISPR/Cas endonucleases and their derived genetic engineering tools possess high accuracy, versatile, more specific, and easy to design, leading to climate-smart or resilient crops to combat food insecurity and survive harsh environments. The CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing approach has been applied to various crops to make them climate resilient. This review, supported by a bibliometric analysis of recent literature, highlights the potential target genes/traits and addresses the significance of gene editing technologies in tackling the vulnerable effects of climate change on major staple crops staple such as wheat, rice, and maize.
Keywords: Climate-smart crops, Food security, Genome editing, Maize, rice, wheat
Received: 23 Nov 2024; Accepted: 27 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ahmed, Kaur, QADIR, Alok and Tiwari. 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:
Zienab F R Ahmed, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
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