Genome Editing Technologies as Powerful Tools in Food Engineering and Biotechnology

Food engineering designs sustainable and environmentally responsible food processes for manufacturing safe, tasty, healthy, and convenient food products. Methods that target the inserted genes to exact sites within the genome of a living organism have been designed, thus leading to a new era in biotechnology, and the introduction of genome editing technologies. The procedure of gene editing is accomplished using nucleases engineered to target an explicit DNA sequence and form DNA double-strand breaks, thus allowing the consequent removal of existing DNA and the insertion of replacement DNA. There are various gene editing techniques, but irrespective of the specific technique used, all are grounded on the use of nucleases: zinc-finger nucleases, TALE nucleases, meganucleases, and CRISPR-associated endonucleases. Gene editing tools give the potential for a completely new approach in the production of crops with desirable genetic traits with many advances compared to technology used in genetically modified plants. Here, the genome editing technologies, advances and obstacles in their application in food engineering and biology, and further challenges in their future development will be described.