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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Kearneysville, West Virginia » Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory » Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #388626
Research Project: Improving Fruit Crop Traits Through Advanced Genomic, Breeding, and Management Technologies

Location: Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection

Title: Opportunities and challenges applying gene editing to specialty crops

Author
item BATE, NICHOLAS - Pairwise
item Dardick, Christopher - Chris
item DE MAAGD, RUUD - Wageningen University And Research Center
item WILLIAMS, ROBERT - Calyxt

Submitted to: In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology - Plants
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/14/2021
Publication Date: 7/20/2021
Citation: Bate, N., Dardick, C.D., De Maagd, R., Williams, R. 2021. Opportunities and challenges applying gene editing to specialty crops. In Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology - Plants. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11627-021-10208-x.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11627-021-10208-x

Interpretive Summary: Gene editing has generated a lot of excitement for the future of crop improvement. This technology provides an opportunity to leverage natural genetic variation to create new varieties, crops, and market opportunities. Specialty crops, represented by hundreds of plant species, are poised to be impacted from this technology as traits are incorporated that benefit the consumer (such as flavor and nutrition), the environment (such as reducing waste, and transport distances), and the farmer (yield and pest/disease resistance). However, many challenges must be overcome before gene editing can be readily applied to specialty crops. Some crops, such as tomato, are already in development and provide a path forward for other specialty crops, some of which have not been improved in centuries.

Technical Abstract: The recent development of gene editing has generated a lot of excitement for the future of crop improvement. At a technical level, targeted gene modification through gene editing (GE) provides an opportunity to build on natural variation to target genetic changes for the creation of new varieties, crops, and market opportunities. Specialty crops, represented by hundreds of plant species, are poised to take advantage of GE and provide solutions to impact traits of importance to the consumer (such as flavorand nutrition), the environment (such as reducing waste, and transport distances), and the farmer (yield and pest/disease resistance). However, many specialty crops face challenges to implement GE such as complex uncharacterized genomes, polyploidy, and long breeding and production cycles. A small number of specialty crops such as tomato are already taking advantage of GE and can represent a blueprint for continued improvement of important specialty crops some of which have gone for centuries without significant genetic improvement.