Using of Genome Editing Methods in Plant Breeding

Abstract

The main task of plant breeding is creating of high-yield, resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses crop varieties with high product quality. The using of traditional breeding methods is limited by the duration of the new crop varieties creation with the required agronomic traits. This depends not only on the duration of growing season and reaching of mature stage of plants (especially the long-period growth plants, e.g. trees), as well as is associated with applying of multiple stages of crossing, selection and testing in breeding process. In addition, conventional methods of chemical and physical mutagenesis do not allow targeting effect to genome. However, the introduction of modern DNA-technology methods, such as genome editing, has opened in a new era in plant breeding. These methods allow to carry out precise and efficient targeted genome modifications, significantly reducing the time required to get plants with desirable features to create new crop varieties in perspective. This review provides the knowledge about application of genome editing methods to increase crop yields and product quality, as well as crop resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In addition, future prospects for integrating these technologies into crop breeding strategies are also discussed.