Genome Editing: Revolutionizing Horticultural Crops Improvement

HorticulturalHorticultural crops have a pivotal role in contributing to food and nutritional security with many valuable productsProduct to human beings. The quality and production of crops are seriously threatened by a number of biotic and abiotic factorsFactors. To feed over increasing population and stabilize the demand and supply ratio, it is of utmost importance to ameliorate the quality and yield of horticulturalHorticultural crops through the deployment of cut-edging technologiesTechnology such as genome-editing. Genome editingGenome editing accelerates the traditional breedingBreeding program to improve the quality of horticulturalHorticultural crops through the precise and efficient use of the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) system and zinc finger nucleasesZinc finger nuclease (ZFN) (ZFNs), meganucleases (MNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleasesTranscription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) (TALENs), and introduce mutationsMutation (InDels). Reverse geneticsGenetics presently uses CRISPR/Cas9 technique on a large scale. In the present book chapter, it is discussed how genome editingGenome editing technologiesTechnology may be used to enhance post-harvestHarvest stability qualities including textureTexture, shelf life, and stress toleranceStress tolerance without lowering yield or nutritional valueNutritional values. The main obstacles limiting the use of CRISPR/Cas9 in horticultureHorticulture crops, however, are the availability of regeneration protocols and adequate sequencing information. The combination of genome editingGenome editing and breedingBreeding may increase the quantity and quality of horticultureHorticulture crops.