Gene editing: an instrument for practical application of gene biology to plant breeding

Plant breeding is well recognized as one of the most important means to meet food security challenges caused by the ever-increasing world population. During the past three decades, plant breeding has been empowered by both new knowledge on trait development and regulation (e.g., functional genomics) and new technologies (e.g., biotechnologies and phenomics). Gene editing, particularly by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) and its variants, has become a powerful technology in plant research and may become a game-changer in plant breeding. Traits are conferred by coding and non-coding genes. From this perspective, we propose different editing strategies for these two types of genes. The activity of an encoded enzyme and its quantity are regulated at transcriptional and post-transcriptional, as well as translational and post-translational, levels. Different strategies are proposed to intervene to generate gene functional variations and consequently phenotype changes. For non-coding genes, trait modification could be achieved by regulating transcription of their own or target genes via gene editing. Also included is a scheme of protoplast editing to make gene editing more applicable in plant breeding. In summary, this review provides breeders with a host of options to translate gene biology into practical breeding strategies, i.e., to use gene editing as a mechanism to commercialize gene biology in plant breeding.