Li Nianao, Yuan Xi, Han Bei, Guo Wei, Chen Haifeng
Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Oil Crops, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Oil Crops Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan 430062, China.
Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2025 Aug 16;26(16):7925. doi: 10.3390/ijms26167925.
Plant architecture is a crucial agronomic trait significantly impacting soybean () yield. Traditional breeding has made some progress in optimizing soybean architecture, but it is limited in precision and efficiency. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR/Cas) system, a revolutionary gene-editing technology, provides unprecedented opportunities for plant genetic improvement. This review outlines CRISPR's development and applications in crop improvement, focusing specifically on progress regulating soybean architecture traits affecting yield, such as node number, internode length, branching, and leaf morphology. It also discusses the technical challenges for CRISPR technology in enhancing soybean architecture, including that the regulatory network of soybean plant architecture is complex and the development of multi-omics platforms helps gene mining. The application of CRISPR enables precise the regulation of gene expression through promoter editing. Meanwhile, it is also faced with technical challenges such as the editing of homologous genes caused by genome polyploidy, the efficiency of editing tools and off-target effects, and low transformation efficiency. New delivery systems such as virus-induced genome editing bring hope for solving some of these problems. The review emphasizes the great potential of CRISPR technology in breeding next-generation soybean varieties with optimized architecture to boost yield potential.
植株形态是一个关键的农艺性状，对大豆产量有重大影响。传统育种在优化大豆植株形态方面取得了一些进展，但在精度和效率上存在局限。成簇规律间隔短回文重复序列及其相关蛋白（CRISPR/Cas）系统作为一项革命性的基因编辑技术，为植物遗传改良提供了前所未有的机遇。本文综述了CRISPR在作物改良中的发展与应用，特别关注其在调控影响大豆产量的植株形态性状（如节数、节间长度、分枝和叶片形态）方面取得的进展。还讨论了CRISPR技术在改良大豆植株形态方面面临的技术挑战，包括大豆植株形态的调控网络复杂，以及多组学平台的发展有助于基因挖掘。CRISPR的应用能够通过启动子编辑实现对基因表达的精确调控。同时，它也面临着一些技术挑战，如基因组多倍性导致同源基因编辑、编辑工具的效率和脱靶效应，以及转化效率较低等问题。病毒诱导基因组编辑等新型递送系统为解决其中一些问题带来了希望。本文强调了CRISPR技术在培育具有优化植株形态以提高产量潜力的下一代大豆品种方面的巨大潜力。
