Beyond the gene: epigenetic and cis-regulatory targets offer new breeding potential for the future

For millennia, natural and artificial selection has combined favourable alleles for desirable traits in crop species. While modern plant breeding has achieved steady increases in crop yields over the last century, on the current trajectory we will simply not meet demand by 2045. Novel breeding strategies and sources of genetic variation will be required to sustainably fill predicted yield gaps and meet new consumer preferences. Here, we highlight that stepping up to meet this grand challenge will increasingly require thinking 'beyond the gene'. Significant progress has been made in understanding the contributions of both epigenetic variation and cis-regulatory variation to plant traits. This non-genic variation has great potential in future breeding, synthetic biology and biotechnology applications.

Automated summary

Traditional plant breeding has achieved certain success, but it is facing the challenge of meeting the growing demand. To fill the yield gaps and meet consumer preferences, new breeding strategies and sources of genetic variation are needed, and it is important to go beyond the traditional gene-centric thinking and consider the roles of epigenetic variation and cis-regulatory variation in plant traits.