Genetic Engineering and Gene Editing for Targeted Trait Modifications

In the twenty-first century, the scientific community faces the challenge of ensuring food security for an increasing population while tackling climate change simultaneously. In this direction, the manipulation of functional traits has captured the interest of scientists worldwide. The arrival of genetic engineering and gene editing has revolutionized the research aiming to improve plant functional traits to enhance productivity with better precision and speed. Genetic engineering techniques like gene silencing and transgenesis alleviate the risks and raise the adaptability of the plant. Trait modifications benefit from plant architecture, flower characters, disease and stress tolerance, and herbicide resistance. This further aids in fulfilling consumer requirements and meeting global food deficiency. Newly emerged plant breeding technologies like clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, zinc finger nucleases, and transcription activator-like effector nucleases have facilitated the advancement of enhanced genetic modification in plants for trait improvement. Continuous efforts and more research in this direction can ameliorate crop losses occurring due to a wide range of factors and aid in successfully fulfilling world hunger.