CRISPR/Cas mediated genome editing in medicinal plants

The safe application of the organic materials leads to more popularity of plant-derived medicines in the recent years. For a long time, classical biotechnology techniques have been exploited in order to obtain a multitude of beneficial traits like, from unraveling the entire metabolic pathwayto increased metabolite and nutrient production, etc. However, conventional genetic engineering methods are not suitable for adding large-concerted changes into a plant, because the random insertion of DNA construct into one or more loci in one or more chromosomes can lead toundesirable effects. The CRISPR/Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated proteins) system was first identified in bacteria and archaea and candegrade exogenous substrates. Therefore, CRISPR/Cas is considered a revolutionary technology in plant biology. Here, we introduce the mechanism of the CRISPR/Cas in particular CRISPR/Cas9, update its recent advances in various applications in plants, and discuss its future prospects to provide an argument for its use in the study of medicinal plants.

Keywords:

CRISPR/Cas , medicinal plants , genome editing , secondary metabolites