About this Research Topic

Background

Crop productivity is one of the important traits to enhance and at the same time the most challenging to improve by classical breeding. Yield could be enhanced by increasing grain weight and/or panicle number or indirectly through developing stress-tolerant varieties. In light of the advancements in gene manipulation by genome editing where targeted genes are subjected to gene-knockout and gene-knock-in to regulate yield-related genes. The most direct approach in this regard is the knockout of genes negatively affecting yield-related traits. Moreover, the introduction of multiple genes positively affecting yield and their intergenic interactions on harvestable components of crop plants are considered to be of greater interest to molecular breeders for yield enhancement. Though progresses are being reported, genes controlling yield are complex and their interactions are not easy to predict. This is mainly attributed to the fact that many of the yield-related traits are controlled by polygenes and the interactions of gene products at different levels are further complicating their effects on yield-related traits. Worldwide, biotic stresses are having major crop losses as they are often sporadic and devastating in scope and severity amid the emergency of highly evolving and dynamic genetics to overcome host counter-reactions. One of the trending reports in this regard is the manipulation of plant genetics in such a way that conserved pathogen genomes are targeted so that they would be kept at bay or unable to cause diseases.

Genome editing, whereby the plant host genome acquires the capacity of the surveilling pathogen genome to ultimately manoeuvre specific pathogens has resulted in significant improvement in immunizing crop plants against selected pathogens. Cas9/sgRNA delivery of conserved mononucleotide geminivirus replicons-based editing has enabled to develop broad spectrum virus resistance in cotton against Cotton leaf curl Kokhrun virus and many other begomoviruses. In such applications, when multiplexed, the CRISPR/Cas9 system has resulted in the development of broad spectrum virus resistance in cucumber vein yellowing virus, papaya ringspot mosaic virus-W, and many others. Targeting multiple sites of the pathogen genome for the development of broad-spectrum resistance in major crops is of greater importance to indirectly improve crop productivity. Extrapolating CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing of major crop plants to develop broad spectrum resistance by arming the host with replicons complementary to mononucleotides of conserved pathogen nucleic acids is of extraordinary importance to enhance yield. The current research topic is aimed to showcase how genome editing and state-of-the-art techniques employed are applied to improve yield-related traits.

We welcome original research, reviews, mini-reviews, opinion pieces, communications, and protocols covering the following (but not limited to) topics:

•Advanced techniques in genome editing for biotic stress resistance development
•Analysis of off-target effect of genome editing for disease resistance
•Genome-wide association study of the effect of resistance development by genome editing on yield traits
•Emerging strategies of host genome editing to arm against multiple disease-causing genes
•Targeting pathogen’s conserved sequences to ward off disease development by genome editing
•Diversification of genome editing techniques for multiple diseases resistance development in major crop plants

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• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Disease resistance, yield, pathogen, off-target effect, multiple resistances, virus resistance

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