Genome editing for food, nutrition, and health

A new era of genetics dawned in the 2010s with the discovery of the revolutionary CRISPR/Cas technology, which enables the targeting and editing of specific genes or genomic loci with high precision 4.Since then, CRISPR-Cas has become a household name, as it has quite literally democratized genome editing across the globe due to its versatility, flexibility, high efficiency, and relative ease of adoption in diverse biological systems.Conventional CRISPR-Cas9 and advanced tools like base editors and prime editors have become principal tools for disrupting gene functions, replacing alleles, creating precise insertions or deletions, and conducting large-scale chromosome engineering 11.However, there are numerous challenges that must be addressed to fully realize the potential of this technology.Base Editing (BE), Prime Editing (PE) and Homology-Directed Repair (HDR) offer the capability for precise allele swapping.However, the efficiency of PE and HDR in higher eukaryotes, particularly in plants, is currently low and requires further enhancement to enable routine application in crop improvement 17.The delivery of CRISPR reagents to specific cell types and their encapsulation within cargo vehicles pose significant challenges.Furthermore, the regeneration of edited plants remains problematic in many recalcitrant crops.Addressing the efficiency of editing in polyploid crops necessitates dedicated attention.