Gene editing useful in climate proofing global food supplies

The findings of a recent study by scientists from The University of Queensland suggests that gene-editing technology is going to play a vital role in climate-proofing future crops in order to protect global food supplies.

Biotechnologist Dr Karen Massel from UQ’s Centre for Crop Science has published a review of gene editing technologies such as CRISPRCas9 to safeguard food security in farming systems under stress from extreme and variable climate conditions.

“Farmers have been manipulating the DNA of plants using conventional breeding technologies for millennia, and now with new gene-editing technologies, we can do this with unprecedented safety, precision and speed,” Dr Massel said.

“This type of gene editing mimics the way cells repair in nature.” Her review recommended integrating CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing into modern breeding programs for crop improvement in cereals. Energy-rich cereal crops such as wheat, rice, maize and sorghum provide two-thirds of the world’s food energy intake.

“Just 15 plant crops provide 90 per cent of the world’s food calories,” Dr Massel said. “It’s a race between a changing climate and plant breeders’ ability to produce crops with genetic resilience that grow well in adverse conditions and have enriched nutritional qualities.

The problem is that it takes too long for breeders to detect and make that genetic diversity available to farmers, with a breeding cycle averaging about 15 years for cereal crops. “Plus CRISPR allows us to do things we can't do through conventional breeding in terms of generating novel diversity and improving breeding for desirable traits.

In proof-of-concept studies, Dr Massel and colleagues at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) applied geneediting technology to sorghum and barley prebreeding programs. “In sorghum, we edited the plant's genes to unlock the digestibility level of the available protein and to boost its nutritional value for humans and livestock,” she said.