Genome editing of wheat - challenges and prospects for tackling changing environment

Abstract

Developing wheat able to sustainably produce high yields when grown under biotic/abiotic stresses is an important goal, in order to obtain food security in the face of ever-increasing human population and unpredictable global climatic conditions. However, random mutagenesis or genetic recombination as conventional ways for wheat improvement, are time-consuming and cannot keep pace with increasing food demands. Targeted genome editing (GE) technologies, like zinc-finger nucleases, transcription activator-like effector nuclease, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/(CRISPR)-associated protein 9 (Cas9)) have been successfully used in editing wheat genome to get heritable variations for creating diversity and precision breeding. The tetraploid durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum L.) and the hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) are the most widely cultivated types, both with large genomes, developed as a consequence of ancient hybridization events between ancestral progenitors.