This study develops a methodology to assess the impacts of input use efficiency enhancement in crop production. Here we investigate fifty years of genetic engineering research aimed at increasing nitrogen use efficiency in rice, focusing on effects on yield and fertilizer use. Our meta-analysis indicates that global adoption of genetically engineered rice could substantially impact agricultural systems, showing the potential to increase food production or, alternatively, to maintain current production levels with a notable reduction in cultivated land and a substantial decrease in global fertilizer use. Yield impacts are greater in developing countries, and gene editing approaches outperform conventional transgenic methods in yield. Among all targeted gene types, efforts to improve transporter gene function have shown the most significant yield improvements. Our findings indicate that genetically engineered crops can enhance productivity and sustainability in agriculture. Global adoption of genetically engineered rice either benefits food production or maintains current production levels with a reduction in cultivated land and global fertilizer use, as revealed by a meta-analysis of 50-year genetic engineering research.
Qiqi Chen, Y. Zhang, David Zilberman· Communications Earth & Envir...· 0 citations
ABSTRACT Haploid induction coupled with genome editing (HI‐Edit) enables direct modification of commercial crop varieties, bypassing the need for trait introgression or direct transformation of elite lines with CRISPR machinery. However, its widespread application has been constrained by low haploid editing rates (HER), the proportion of haploids carrying edits within the short window between double fertilization and uniparental chromosome elimination. Here, we report substantial improvements in maize HI‐Edit efficiency through three complementary strategies: (1) driving an optimized LbCas12a variant (LbCas12aV) using promoters that are highly active in sperm cells and early zygotes; (2) applying a post‐pollination heat treatment; and (3) fusing LbCas12aV with the UBA2 domain (ubiquitin‐associated domain‐2 of Arabidopsis thaliana RAD23) to enhance protein stability during haploid induction. Post‐pollination heat treatment alone increased HER to 19.1% (up to 12‐fold improvement depending on the target site), providing a simple and effective method to boost the yield of edited doubled haploid (DH) plants. UBA2 fusion improved HER by 6‐fold at the Waxy1 (Wx1) locus and 4.5‐fold at the Glossy2 (Gl2) locus under normal conditions. Strikingly, combining UBA2 fusion with heat treatment raised the average HER to 25% across multiple events targeting Wx1, with the highest HER reaching 33%. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that increasing CRISPR‐Cas protein abundance and modulating environmental conditions can overcome key bottlenecks in HI‐Edit. We establish a robust, scalable framework that is readily transferable to other crops for elite‐line genome editing.
Dawei Liang, Huanhuan Guo, Juan Wei et al.· Plant Biotechnology Journal· 0 citations
