CRISPR/Cas-Mediated Genome Editing Approach for Improving Virus Resistance in Sugarcane

Sugarcane is one of the most important food and energy crops. Viruses pose a severe threat to sugarcane cultivation by adversely affecting yield and juice quality and also restrict the germplasm exchange. Available mechanical and chemical methods are ineffective in managing the viral diseases. Tissue culture plantlets, developed through either shoot tip or meristem culture to avoid viruses in the field, give protection only to a shorter period. Moreover, conventional breeding to develop virus-resistant cultivars is laborious and time-consuming process, especially in vegetatively propagated crops like sugarcane. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats & CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR/Cas) is a robust tool for introducing site-specific mutations in crop plants. CRISPR/Cas system can be used to manipulate both viruses and/or plant genomes based on the nature of virus genetic material to protect plants from the viruses in a short time. Multiplex genome editing lowers the development of CRISPR/Cas evading viral variants and improves editing efficiency. Hence, CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing along with simultaneous editing of multiple regions through multiplexing would be an effective strategy to manage viral pathogens in sugarcane.