REVIEW article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Biotechnology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1638144
This article is part of the Research TopicEngineering Future Crops Through Genome EditingView all 13 articles
In planta transformation methods to accelerate the domestication of perennial grain crops
Provisionally accepted
Michael Palmgren*
Pedro Miguel Pereira Correia
Xinyi Dong
Mengming Chen
Anton Frisgaard Nørrevang
Guangbin Luo- University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
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The domestication of grasses has historically favored annual species due to their rapid growth and suitability for crop rotation; however, such crops rely heavily on human input. In contrast, perennial grasses, which live for multiple years, offer significant environmental benefits, such as improved soil health and natural resilience to biotic and abiotic stress, buthave not yet been domesticated. Gene editing of yield-related genes presents an opportunity to improve yield stability in perennial cereal crops. However, this process typically requires transformation to introduce gene-editing tools, and many perennial grasses are recalcitrant to traditional in vitro transformation. Alternative in planta transformation methods have recently emerged, offering simpler, faster, and more genotype-independent approaches. These methods bypass the need for tissue culture and could potentially be used to transform recalcitrant plants more efficiently. In this review, we evaluate the potential of in planta transformation methods for developing perennial cereal crops and advocate for exploring the role of such crops in sustainable agriculture.
Keywords: In planta transformation, recalcitrance, Perennial agriculture, Grain crops, monocots
Received: 30 May 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Palmgren, Pereira Correia, Dong, Chen, Nørrevang and Luo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Michael Palmgren, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
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