The peach aphid (Myzus persicae) is a major agricultural pest that causes significant yield losses and transmits numerous plant viruses. We profiled BtACO8 expression in Balsas teosinte and found that aphid infestation induced its transcripts 12.6-fold at 12 h post-infestation relative to non-infested controls. We therefore cloned BtACO8, encoding 1-aminocyclopropane−1-carboxylate oxidase, and investigated its role in aphid resistance by heterologous overexpression in Arabidopsis thaliana. Three homozygous BtACO8-OE lines were obtained and used for functional characterization. Compared with wild-type plants, OE lines showed higher trichome density and greater callose deposition, and supported over 50
The ever-increasing global demand for food and feed, coupled with population growth and climate change, necessitates the development of high-yielding and stress-resilient crops. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology has emerged as a transformative genome-editing tool due to its efficiency, precision, and ability to generate targeted genetic modifications. This review highlights recent advances in CRISPR genome editing, including base editing, prime editing, and novel Cas variants, together with emerging approaches such as epigenome editing, mitochondrial genome editing, and hypercompact Cas systems, and their applications in improving crop productivity, stress tolerance, and nutritional quality. In food and feed crops, these applications also include crop-specific priorities such as grain and nutritional quality in food crops and digestibility, forage quality, and mineral bioavailability in feed and forage crops. Particular emphasis is placed on the complex intellectual property (IP) landscape surrounding CRISPR technologies, including patents on editing systems, delivery platforms, and proprietary vectors. These intellectual property barriers can restrict research access, technology transfer, and commercialization, particularly in developing countries. The review further discusses patent limitations, licensing frameworks, and strategies to enhance equitable global access through collaborative approaches such as non-exclusive licensing, humanitarian licensing, indigenous technology development, and international partnerships. Overall, the review underscores the need to balance innovation, intellectual property protection, and global accessibility to ensure that CRISPR-based technologies contribute effectively to worldwide food and feed security and sustainable agriculture.
The global burden of viral diseases in both humans and agricultural animals is exacerbated by dysregulated inflammatory cell death and cytokine storms. Pyroptosis, executed by gasdermin family proteins, is a key driver of this pathology, yet its functional conservation and therapeutic targeting in avian species remain critically unexplored. Here, we establish the first germline-edited heterozygous DFNA5-mutant chicken model using primordial germ cell mediated genome editing. We demonstrate that genetic disruption of DFNA5 markedly attenuates Raptinal-induced pyroptosis and reduces IL-1β and IL-18 secretion. Using an optimized adenoviral dual-sgRNA delivery system, we successfully generated chimeric chickens with stable germline transmission of a frameshift deletion in DFNA5. Notably, DFNA5 deficiency is associated with reduced expression of the viral gp85 gene following avian leukosis virus subgroup J (ALV-J) infection. Mechanistically, transcriptome analysis reveals that downregulated genes in ALV-J-infected DFNA5-mutant cells are enriched in apoptosis and NOD-like receptor signaling pathways, while upregulated genes are associated with cell adhesion, extracellular matrix organization, and homeostatic pathways, suggesting a possible shift from pyroptotic inflammation toward cellular integrity and repair. This work provides genetic evidence that a possible association between DFNA5-mediated pyroptotic responses and establishes a genetic strategy for poultry disease resistance research and for understanding host-virus evolution and viral-induced inflammatory pathologies across vertebrates.
Brassica juncea is a common cruciferous crop, which can be used not only for oil extraction but also as condiments and medicinal materials. It is regarded by both traditional medicine and modern nutrition science as a food with combined dietary and health promoting value. Leaf trichomes are hair-like structures differentiated from epidermal cells and constitute an important barrier against biotic and abiotic stresses, playing a crucial role in enhancing plant resistance and thus possessing significant scientific relevance. In this study, the phenotype and gene editing site of BjA06.GL1 and BjB02.GL1 knockout mustard T1 generation plants were identified. Then, RNA sequencing was performed to compare the leaf transcriptome profiles between gene-edited lines and wild-type plants, with the aim of elucidating the molecular regulatory mechanisms by which BjGL1 controls leaf trichome development and associated biological processes in mustard. The sequencing data showed that, on average, 90.64
Global climate change and shrinking freshwater supplies threaten agricultural sustainability. A major translational bottleneck exists: drought-tolerant genotypes developed in labs often fail in open-field conditions due to phenotypic mismatch. Traditional single-gene approaches and static lab tests overlook genotype-by-environment (G × E) interactions, hormonal tradeoffs (involving Abscisic Acid, Jasmonic Acid, Brassinosteroids, and Melatonin), and artificial effects of pots. This review presents an integrated quantitative selection framework to bridge lab and field results. In this review, we propose a conceptual three-stage Predictive Translational Workflow designed to bridge lab and field outcomes by integrating multi-omics envirotyping with advanced mixed models like (G × E)-BLUP and MegaLMM. These methods group complex transcriptomic and metabolomic data into functional networks, filtering out lab artifacts and pinpointing core regulatory nodes stable in real climates. Finally, we show how this pipeline enables precise CRISPR/Cas9 editing of native promoters, reducing agronomic yield penalties in normal conditions and offering a streamlined, non-GMO path to field-resilient crops.
