Bilal Muhammad, Geng Jie, Chen Lin, García-Caparros Pedro, Hu Tao
State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730020, China.
State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Hortic Res. 2024 Oct 15;12(2):uhae293. doi: 10.1093/hr/uhae293. eCollection 2025 Jan.
Grasses, including turf and forage, cover most of the earth's surface; predominantly important for land, water, livestock feed, soil, and water conservation, as well as carbon sequestration. Improved production and quality of grasses by modern molecular breeding is gaining more research attention. Recent advances in genome-editing technologies are helping to revolutionize plant breeding and also offering smart and efficient acceleration on grass improvement. Here, we reviewed all recent researches using (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein (Cas)-mediated genome editing tools to enhance the growth and quality of forage and turf grasses. Furthermore, we highlighted emerging approaches aimed at advancing grass breeding program. We assessed the CRISPR-Cas effectiveness, discussed the challenges associated with its application, and explored future perspectives primarily focusing on turf and forage grasses. Despite the promising potential of genome editing in grasses, its current efficiency remains limited due to several bottlenecks, such as the absence of comprehensive reference genomes, the lack of efficient gene delivery tools, unavailability of suitable vector and delivery for grass species, high polyploidization, and multiple homoeoalleles, etc. Despite these challenges, the CRISPR-Cas system holds great potential to fully harness its benefits in grass breeding and genetics, aiming to improve and sustain the quantity and quality of turf and forage grasses.
包括草坪草和饲草在内的禾本科植物覆盖了地球大部分表面；对土地、水、牲畜饲料、土壤和水土保持以及碳固存具有至关重要的意义。通过现代分子育种提高禾本科植物的产量和品质正受到越来越多的研究关注。基因组编辑技术的最新进展正在推动植物育种发生变革，也为禾本科植物改良提供了智能高效的加速手段。在此，我们综述了所有利用（CRISPR）/CRISPR相关蛋白（Cas）介导的基因组编辑工具来提高饲草和草坪草生长及品质的最新研究。此外，我们强调了旨在推进禾本科植物育种计划的新方法。我们评估了CRISPR-Cas的有效性，讨论了其应用中存在的挑战，并主要围绕草坪草和饲草探讨了未来前景。尽管基因组编辑在禾本科植物中具有广阔的应用潜力，但由于一些瓶颈问题，如缺乏全面的参考基因组、高效的基因传递工具、适用于禾本科植物的合适载体和传递方法、高度多倍体化以及多个同源等位基因等，其目前的效率仍然有限。尽管存在这些挑战，CRISPR-Cas系统在禾本科植物育种和遗传学中充分发挥其优势、旨在提高和维持草坪草和饲草的数量及质量方面仍具有巨大潜力。
