Genome editing and beyond: what does it mean for the future of plant breeding?

Main conclusion Genome editing offers revolutionized solutions for plant breeding to sustain food production to feed the world by 2050. Therefore, genome-edited products are increasingly recognized via more relaxed legislation and community adoption. The world population and food production are disproportionally growing in a manner that would have never matched each other under the current agricultural practices. The emerging crisis is more evident with the subtle changes in climate and the running-off of natural genetic resources that could be easily used in breeding in conventional ways. Under these circumstances, affordable CRISPR-Cas-based gene-editing technologies have brought hope and charged the old plant breeding machine with the most energetic and powerful fuel to address the challenges involved in feeding the world. What makes CRISPR-Cas the most powerful gene-editing technology? What are the differences between it and the other genetic engineering/breeding techniques? Would its products be labeled as conventional or GMO? There are so many questions to be answered, or that cannot be answered within the limitations of our current understanding. Therefore, we would like to discuss and answer some of the mentioned questions regarding recent progress in technology development. We hope this review will offer another view on the role of CRISPR-Cas technology in future of plant breeding for food production and beyond.

Automated summary

Genome editing technology, particularly CRISPR-Cas, offers a promising solution for plant breeding to ensure food production for the growing world population. This technology is gaining recognition worldwide and has the potential to address the challenges posed by climate change and the depletion of natural genetic resources. The application of CRISPR-Cas technology in plant breeding is seen as a powerful tool and can offer new perspectives for the future of food production.