The Potential Applications of Site-Directed Mutagenesis for Crop Improvement: A review

Abstract

The search for technologies for crop improvement has been a continuous practice to address the food insecurity to the growing human population with an ever decreasing arable land and dynamic climate change around the world. Considering the potential technologies for crop improvement could close the rooms of poverty in developing countries in particular and around the globe at large. This review aimed to assess the site-directed mutation creation methods and to show the potential tools for future crop improvement programs. Site-directed mutagenesis was found to be an efficient process to create targeted mutation on cereal crops, horticultural crops, oilseed crops, and others. Agronomic traits such as yield, quality, and stress tolerance have been improved using site-directed mutagenesis. Besides, selectable marker elimination was also reported from transgenic crops by targeted mutation. Most of the reports on site-directed mutagenesis is focusing on cereal crops (58.339%) followed by horticultural crops (22.92%). Among the four mutagenic tools that have been reported, the CRISPR/Ca9 technology was found to be frequently used (66.67%) followed by TALENs. This tool is potential since it is efficient in creating targeted mutagenesis and less likely off-target effect, so it is repeatedly used in different research works. TALENs were used usually to knockout genes with bad traits. Moreover, the mutation created by mutagenic tools found to be efficient, and the mutated traits proved as it was heritable to generations. Hence, site-directed mutagenesis by the CRISPR/Cas9 system is advisable for agricultural development thereby ensuring food sustainability around the world.

Mutation Breeding and Its Importance in Modern Plant Breeding

“…The act of producing a mutation at a specific location in a DNA molecule is known as this sort of mutagenesis [6]. This is accomplished in plants by genetic transformation and homologous recombination of the T-DNA fragment with indigenous DNA molecules.…”

Особливості Впливу Епімутагену Тритон-305х На Рослини Пшениці Озимої

“…Одним зі шляхів є переорієнтація з фізичного (більш популярного) на інші типи мутагенів, котрі не лише характеризуються меншим депресивним ефектом, але й сайт-специфічністю у дії. Разом з тим, іноді це призводить да звуження спектру мутаційних змін [4,5]. Іншим шляхом є використання нових, менш шкодочинних чинників з різною природою дії [8], застосування первинного матеріалу з встановленими генетично-обумовленими механізмами толерантності до активності певних факторів або груп факторів (останнє характерно для хімічних речовин) [6,7].…”

Introduction to Plant Mutation Breeding: Different Approaches and Mutagenic Agents

“…Mutations through SDM can be performed in vitro or in vivo, allowing researchers to alter plant DNA at a single site or multiple sites. There are three methods of SDM in use: PCR-based, Nucleus based, and vector-based(Bezie et al, 2020).…”