CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing is revolutionizing the improvement of horticultural crops: Recent advances and future prospects

In modern agriculture, horticultural crops are an integral component and play a vital role in sustaining human life. Although conventional approaches have contributed to the enhanced agricultural production, innovative breeding technology is required to further increase horticultural and nutritious crop worldwide. Genome editing has revolutionized the plant world by precisely edit the targeted modification of plant genome, including model plants, agricultural and horticultural crops. Recent advances in Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR/associated protein 9 (Cas9) genome editing tool have emerged as an efficient targeted modification in most fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants thus promising to accelerate crop improvement due to its high accuracy and efficiency. Several reports of the development of improved fruit, vegetable and ornamental plants using CRISPR/Cas9 tool has been documented. CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing efficiency depends on several factors such as promoter sequence, RNA polymerase specificity, Cas9 expression, types of vectors, guide RNA expression etc. In the present review, we summarize the applications of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system in fruit, vegetable and ornamental crops. This article also provides its origin, mechanism, an existing pitfall and future possibilities for bright future in development of horticultural crops.