Achieving Drought Tolerance in Rice by Targeted Genome Editing

Abstract

Rice is one of the major sources of food that feeds half of the world’s population, but the yield is significantly reduced due to several biotic and abiotic stresses. Among the abiotic stresses, drought is very severe which negatively affects plant growth, development and production, is a critical form of environmental stress. Drought stress affects diverse biochemical aspects, in addition to physiological and morphological traits, which are crucial for plant growth. Recent advancements in Genome Editing Technologies (GETs) involve the development of a clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/ CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) system to achieve the desired goal. CRISPR-Cas-mediated genome editing has proven a dynamic tool for rapid and high-throughput reconfiguration of endogenous genes. Among these, the CRISPR/Cas9 system is the most efficient, easier, promising, reliable and widely adopted, for improving yield and stress resilience.