Polyploidy, involving the presence of three or more complete chromosome sets in an organism, is very common in crop plants, especially in the primary food and cash crops grown world-wide, such as wheat, oat, potato, oilseed rape, cotton, strawberry, apple, banana, peanut, sugarcane, and citrus. Polyploidy has been considered the major force in genome evolution and the formation of many superior agronomic traits in crop plants, including biomass and stress adaptation. However, the polyploidy feature, which occurs when most genes have more than two homologous copies with putatively redundant or diverse roles, also presents significant challenges in functional characterization and breeding application at later stages. CRISPR/Cas genome editing tools provide a simple and effective strategy to identify and evaluate key functional homologs, which should be extensively studied in polyploid crops.
With the rapid evolution of versatile CRISPR/Cas technology, many genome editing systems have been optimized in major crop plants in the past decade. However, the application of CRISPR/Cas tools has a very strong dependence on genetic transformation, which is one of the biggest challenges for developing genome editing techniques in some polyploid crops. Thus, establishing effective transformation methodology is the first step for subsequent development of CRISPR/Cas systems. Moreover, the genome editing efficiency always exhibits significant difference among crop species. For example, Base editors (ABE and CBE), and primer editor have made great progress in wheat and rice, yet these editors still need to be optimized in most polyploid crops, such as the primer editor system in allotetraploid oilseed rape and cotton. Polyploid crops represent a primary source of high-value natural products, however, the functional differentiation of gene homologous copies in regulating key metabolic pathways and agronomic traits still needs to be fully studied.
This Research Topic welcomes research articles and reviews that include the following:
• Developing high-efficiency genome editing tools and methods for simultaneously modifying multiple genomic sites in polyploid crops.
• Establishment of effective transformation methodology for genome editing in polyploid crops.
• Applying genome editing tools to dissect the functional differentiation of gene homologous copies in regulating key agronomic traits.
• Generating new germplasm resources in polyploid crops by using genome editing tools
• Genetic engineering of plant metabolic pathways to produce high-value metabolites in crop plants
Polyploidy, involving the presence of three or more complete chromosome sets in an organism, is very common in crop plants, especially in the primary food and cash crops grown world-wide, such as wheat, oat, potato, oilseed rape, cotton, strawberry, apple, banana, peanut, sugarcane, and citrus. Polyploidy has been considered the major force in genome evolution and the formation of many superior agronomic traits in crop plants, including biomass and stress adaptation. However, the polyploidy feature, which occurs when most genes have more than two homologous copies with putatively redundant or diverse roles, also presents significant challenges in functional characterization and breeding application at later stages. CRISPR/Cas genome editing tools provide a simple and effective strategy to identify and evaluate key functional homologs, which should be extensively studied in polyploid crops.
With the rapid evolution of versatile CRISPR/Cas technology, many genome editing systems have been optimized in major crop plants in the past decade. However, the application of CRISPR/Cas tools has a very strong dependence on genetic transformation, which is one of the biggest challenges for developing genome editing techniques in some polyploid crops. Thus, establishing effective transformation methodology is the first step for subsequent development of CRISPR/Cas systems. Moreover, the genome editing efficiency always exhibits significant difference among crop species. For example, Base editors (ABE and CBE), and primer editor have made great progress in wheat and rice, yet these editors still need to be optimized in most polyploid crops, such as the primer editor system in allotetraploid oilseed rape and cotton. Polyploid crops represent a primary source of high-value natural products, however, the functional differentiation of gene homologous copies in regulating key metabolic pathways and agronomic traits still needs to be fully studied.
This Research Topic welcomes research articles and reviews that include the following:
• Developing high-efficiency genome editing tools and methods for simultaneously modifying multiple genomic sites in polyploid crops.
• Establishment of effective transformation methodology for genome editing in polyploid crops.
• Applying genome editing tools to dissect the functional differentiation of gene homologous copies in regulating key agronomic traits.
• Generating new germplasm resources in polyploid crops by using genome editing tools
• Genetic engineering of plant metabolic pathways to produce high-value metabolites in crop plants
