Applications of CRISPR/Cas9 System in Vegetatively Propagated Fruit and Berry Crops

Abstract

Fruit and berry crops, as well as grapes, are important parts of the human diet and, at the same time, significant objects of genetic, breeding, biochemical and nutritional research. Traditional approaches of crop research and improvement are now complemented by effective modern genetic technologies. In this review, we analyze and summarize the achievements in genome editing of fruit, berry crops and grapes. New approaches accelerate the improvement of genotypes for many groups of traits: plant resistance to unfavorable environmental factors, flowering and ripening time, plant architectonics, fruit shelf time and biochemical composition. Genome editing using the CRISPR/Cas9 system has been successfully tested on the most important vegetatively propagated fruit and berry crops (apple, pear, orange, kumquat, grapefruit, banana, strawberry and kiwi) and grapes. About 30 genes of these crops have been used as targets for the introduction of desired mutations using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The most valuable results are the improvement of important agronomic traits. For 24 genes it has been shown that their knockout can result in the improvement of varieties. In addition, the review pays attention to the comparative analysis of the explant types of vegetatively propagated crops used for the delivery of editing genetic constructs, as well as the comparison of the editing efficiency depending on the variation of the objects used, delivery methods, etc. The article discusses the existing limitations that need to be overcome for a wider application of genomic editing in order to improve varieties of fruit and berry crops, as well as grapes.

Advancing horizons in vegetable cultivation: a journey from ageold practices to high-tech greenhouse cultivation—a review

“…Gene-editing techniques, especially clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), have opened new avenues for improving crop traits. Smart greenhouses, integrating renewable energy sources, advanced climate control systems, and remote management capabilities, have become hallmarks of modern vegetable farming ( Deshmukh et al., 2020 ; Fizikova et al., 2021 ; Kumar and Prabhansu, 2022 ; Zhu and Shang, 2022 ; Furquim et al., 2023 ).…”

CRISPR/Cas as a Genome-Editing Technique in Fruit Tree Breeding

“…This genetic modification resulted in an extended fruit shelf-life period of up to 40 days when compared to wild-type bananas [154]. Moreover, the edited MA-ACO1 lines yielded fruits with an increased vitamin C content [155].…”

Insights into the Mechanism of CRISPR/Cas9-Based Genome Editing from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

“…Clinical trials for the first in vivo application of Cas9 began in 2019 . Presently, CRISPR/Cas9 is used in vast applications in genome editing ranging from therapeutic applications − to plant − and fungal , biotechnology.…”

“…Class I systems involve multiple Cas proteins, whereas class II systems involve only one protein for the interference step. − CRISPR/Cas systems are also divided into different types on the basis of the presence of unique genes (Cas3, Cas9, Cas10, Csf2, Cpf1, and Cas13 for Types I–VI, respectively). − A simple overview of the Cas protein components characteristic of each type has been depicted in Figure . The further classification into subtypes is more complicated, which takes into account several factors such as the presence of unique genes, evolutionary conservation of effector modules, and many more. , Involvement of a single Cas protein in the interference step has made the Class II system very attractive as a genome-editing tool, particularly the CRISPR/Cas9 system, which has extensively been used in numerous genome-editing applications. − CRISPR systems mostly target foreign DNA except for the type VI CRISPR/Cas13 system, which targets RNA …”