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Review highlights the role of cis-regulatory element variation in agronomic traits, suggesting innovative crop improvement methods.
A deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms shaping plant development is relevant for enhancing agricultural productivity. Among these mechanisms, the regulation of gene expression plays a central role in determining phenotypes and plasticity. This specificity is largely mediated by transcription factors (TFs) that bind cis-regulatory elements (CREs), short DNA sequences dispersed within intergenic regions. Despite their key roles, CRE function remains incompletely understood. However, growing evidence indicates that variation in CREs has contributed to crop domestication, adaptation, and trait diversification. This review highlights the role of CRE variation in shaping agronomic traits, discusses current approaches for CRE identification with a focus on multi-omics strategies, and examines recent genome-editing technologies for CRE manipulation and their potential applications in crop improvement.
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Boccaccini et al. (2026) studied this question.
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