Targeted genome editing in polyploids: lessons from Brassica

Niaz Ahmad; Samia Fatima; Muhammad Aamer Mehmood; Qamar U Zaman; Rana Muhammad Atif; Weijun Zhou; Mehboob-Ur Rahman; Rafaqat Ali Gill

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1152468

Targeted genome editing in polyploids: lessons from Brassica

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Jun 20:14:1152468. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1152468. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Niaz Ahmad¹, Samia Fatima¹, Muhammad Aamer Mehmood², Qamar U Zaman^{3

4}, Rana Muhammad Atif^{5

6}, Weijun Zhou⁷, Mehboob-Ur Rahman¹, Rafaqat Ali Gill⁸

Affiliations

¹ National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering College, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
² Department of Bioinformatics & Biotechnology, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
³ Hainan Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory, Sanya Nanfan Research Institute of Hainan University, Sanya, China.
⁴ College of Tropical Crops, Hainan University, Haikou, China.
⁵ National Center of Genome Editing, Center of Advanced Studies, Agriculture and Food Security, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁶ Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁷ Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Key Lab of Spectroscopy Sensing, Institute of Crop Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
⁸ Key Laboratory for Biology and Genetic Improvement of Oil Crops, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Oil Crops Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

CRISPR-mediated genome editing has emerged as a powerful tool for creating targeted mutations in the genome for various applications, including studying gene functions, engineering resilience against biotic and abiotic stresses, and increasing yield and quality. However, its utilization is limited to model crops for which well-annotated genome sequences are available. Many crops of dietary and economic importance, such as wheat, cotton, rapeseed-mustard, and potato, are polyploids with complex genomes. Therefore, progress in these crops has been hampered due to genome complexity. Excellent work has been conducted on some species of Brassica for its improvement through genome editing. Although excellent work has been conducted on some species of Brassica for genome improvement through editing, work on polyploid crops, including U's triangle species, holds numerous implications for improving other polyploid crops. In this review, we summarize key examples from genome editing work done on Brassica and discuss important considerations for deploying CRISPR-mediated genome editing more efficiently in other polyploid crops for improvement.

Keywords: Brassica; CRISPR; crop improvement; genome editing; polyploid crops.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province (2021C02064-2), the Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production co-sponsored by Province and Ministry (CIC-MCP), and the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Department of Zhejiang Province (2021XTTGLY0202). We also gratefully acknowledge the support of ICGEB to NA via grant No. CRP/PAK20-02.