Plant viral vectors: expanding the possibilities of precise gene editing in plant genomes

Abstract

The lack of a highly efficient method for delivering reagents for genome engineering to plant cells remains a bottleneck in achieving efficient gene editing in plant genomes. A suite of recent reports uncovers the newly emerged roles of viral vectors, which can introduce gene edits in plants with high mutation frequencies through in planta delivery. Here, we focus on the emerging protocols that utilized different approaches for virus-mediated genome editing in model plants. Testing of these protocols and the newly identified hypercompact Casɸ systems is needed to broaden the scope of genome editing in most plant species, including crops, with minimized reliance on conventional plant transformation methods in the future.