Overcoming Genome Editing Challenges in Plants: New Tools and Nanotechnologies

The usefulness and impact of new generation genome engineering technologies, such as CRISPR-Cas, have been demonstrated widely in plants and agriculture. Despite the revolutionary nature of genome-editing tools and the notable progress that these tools have enabled in plant improvement, there remain many challenges for widespread and facile application of CRISPR in many plant species. Most of these challenges stem directly or indirectly from the cargo delivery and tissue culture-based plant regeneration bottlenecks. Recent progress has been made in the delivery area through the usage of nanomaterials and RNA viruses, along with notable improvements to the tissue culture process via developmental regulators, growth factors, haploid induction, among many other approaches.

The first purpose of this Research Topic is to demonstrate the remarkable advancements in plant genome engineering using CRISPR-Cas along with identifying and critically discussing the main bottlenecks of this process.

This Research Topic also aims to present a broad range of functional genomics, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology tools that are being developed to overcome current genome engineering limitations in plants, including but not limited to delivery, transformation, tissue culture, regeneration, and functional redundancy challenges.

This Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Methods, Review, Mini-Review, Brief Research Report, Perspective, and Opinion articles on:
• Advancements in plant genome engineering via CRISPR-Cas
• Approaches to overcome plant cargo delivery and transformation barriers
• Transformation and gene editing without or decreased burden of tissue culture
• Nanoparticle-based approaches to plant cargo delivery and genetic engineering
• Synthesis and utilization of nanoparticles in plant science and agriculture
• Toxicity evaluation and the potential physiological impact of Nanoparticle used in plants
• Development of plant gene editing, functional genomics, and synthetic biology and bioengineering tools
• High-throughput and/or genome-wide RNAi and CRISPR screens in plants