Climate change affects crop production, thus posing food security challenges. Genome editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 plays a pivotal role in creation of crops with higher yield and improved nutrition under abiotic and biotic conditions. Despite their revolutionary advantages, many challenges remain for CRISPR applications in plant biotechnology. Nanomaterials could address some of the most critical challenges of CRISPR genome editing in plants through improvements in cargo delivery, species independence, germline transformation and gene editing efficiency1.

CNT-mediated plasmid DNA delivery into rice tissues was performed using leaf and excised-embryo infiltration with reporter genes. Quantitative and qualitative data indicate that CNTs facilitate plasmid DNA delivery in rice leaf and embryo tissues, resulting in transient GFP, YFP, and GUS expression. It appears to be promising for in planta transformation, and further optimization can enable high-throughput gene editing to accelerate functional genomics and crop improvement activities2.

Instead of DNA, proteins can be delivered into plant cells which allows for transient expression. Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles (MSNs) was used as carriers to deliver Cre recombinase protein into maize cells. Cre protein was loaded inside the pores of gold-plated MSNs, and delivered by the biolistic method to plant cells harboring loxP site. It leads to recombination of the loxP sites and elimination of both genes gat and Amcyan1. This method offers an alternative for DNA-free genome-editing technologies in which MSNs can be tailored to accommodate the desired enzyme and to reach the desired tissue through the biolistic method3.

To overcome the challenges related to the CRISPR/Cas9, nanomaterials can be used to edit plant genomes aimed at realizing their full potential. Nucleic acid nanotechnology has provided new inspiration for the CRISPR/Cas9 system as a result of its unprecedented ability. Future advancements in systems biology should allow for high-throughput and precise gene editing, editing genes in mitochondria or chloroplasts, and editing genomes of plants without having to integrate transgenes4.

References

1.DEMIRER, G. S., SILVA, T. N., JACKSON, C. T., THOMAS, J. B., W. EHRHARDT, D., RHEE, S. Y., MORTIMER, J. C. AND LANDRY, M. P., 2021, Nanotechnology to advance CRISPR–Cas genetic engineering of plants. Nature Nanotechnol., 16(3): 243-250.

2.DUNBAR, T., TSAKIRPALOGLOU, N., SEPTININGSIH, E. M. AND THOMSON, M. J., 2022, Carbon nanotube-mediated plasmid DNA delivery in rice leaves and seeds. Int. J. Mol. Sci., 23(8): 4081.

3.MARTIN-ORTIGOSA, S., PETERSON, D. J., VALENSTEIN, J. S., LIN, V. S. Y., TREWYN, B. G., LYZNIK, L. A. AND WANG, K., 2014, Mesoporous silica nanoparticle-mediated intracellular Cre protein delivery for maize genome editing via loxP site excision. Pl. Physiol., 164(2): 537-547.

4.VATS, S., KUMAWAT, S., BRAR, J., KAUR, S., YADAV, K., MAGAR, S. G., JADHAV, P. V., SALVI, P., SONAH, H., SHARMA, S. AND DESHMUKH, R., 2022, Opportunity and challenges for nanotechnology application for genome editing in plants. Pl. Nano Biol., p.100001.