A systems breeding framework integrating pangenomics multiomics phenomics and precision genome editing for reproductive stage drought resilience in rice
Aug 2026· Discover Plants· Vol 3· 0 citations· 76 references
Abstract
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is highly vulnerable to drought during the reproductive phase, with yield losses exceeding 50% due to spikelet sterility, pollen abortion, and impaired grain filling. Progress through conventional breeding has been constrained by the polygenic nature of drought tolerance and by strong genotype × environment (G × E) interactions. This review proposes a systems breeding strategy integrating five complementary approaches rice pangenomics, genome-wide association studies (GWAS), genomic selection (GS), high-throughput phenomics, and precision genome editing to strengthen drought resilience at the reproductive stage. Structural variants identified through pangenome analyses across diverse Oryza accessions have been implicated in abscisic acid (ABA) signalling, osmolyte biosynthesis, antioxidant defence, and root system architecture pathways central to reproductive-stage drought adaptation. Multi-omics-informed GWAS, combined with co-localisation of eQTLs and protein QTLs in drought-stressed reproductive tissues, highlights high-confidence candidate genes including OsNAC14, OsbZIP23, and DRO1 that help explain the physiological basis of water-deficit adaptation. Incorporating envirotyping data into GS models has been shown to improve predictive accuracy across diverse rainfed environments. Alongside marker-assisted selection, base editing and prime editing enable targeted allelic refinement with minimal off-target effects. We present a proposed tiered candidate prioritisation pipeline that advances loci supported by convergent genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and field-level evidence toward practical breeding deployment. Translating these discoveries into climate-resilient varieties will require FAIR data sharing, coordinated phenotyping networks, and multi-environment validation platforms linking genomic discovery to scalable breeding pipelines for drought-resistant, high-yielding rice in rainfed systems.
It is concluded that bridging the gap between foundational CRISPR research and its real-world applications is imperative and future efforts should focus on democratizing tools via open-source platforms, advancing delivery systems, and fostering sustainable innovation through synthetic biology integration to fully realize the transformative potential of genome editing in organisms beyond model organisms.
S. Sarsaiya, Archana Jain, Jishuang Chen et al.· Biotechnology Advances· 2 citations
It is argued that formation of a tumour-intrinsic niche is a prerequisite for BRAF-mutant CRC seeding to distant organs and that interference with niche formation may help avoid metastatic relapse.
J. Bugter, L. El Bouazzaoui, E. Küçükköse et al.· bioRxiv· 2 citations
This review summarizes emerging therapeutic strategies for EOC, their mechanisms of action, and their potential to overcome treatment resistance, and covers molecularly targeted therapies, immunotherapies, metabolic and epigenetic approaches, cellular and gene therapies, targeted drug-delivery systems, and locoregional and physical modalities.
Zofia Pietrasik, Mikołaj Kapała, Joanna Pietrasik et al.· Cancers· 0 citations
Genetic engineering (GE) and gene editing may endow traits to trees such as increased biomass and the production of novel biomaterials. Long-lived organisms such as trees might be subject to biotechnology-related risks that could be different than those of annual row crops. Those risks could be relevant to production in engineered plantations and beyond plantations to natural forests. Therefore, appropriate risk regulation is important to assure biosafety of commercialized engineered trees. In addition to gene flow via sexual reproduction, vegetative reproduction might play an additional role in environmental "exposure" risk relative to transgene dispersal in GE tree plantations. While vegetative reproduction is beneficial for preserving desired genetic traits during tree propagation, it may lead to proximal clonal spread in the field. Although the environmental risks associated with vegetative reproduction of GE trees are recognized in commercial forestry, there are few field-based environmental risk assessment (ERA) studies on dispersal risks of self-propagated GE trees. GE or gene editing of target genes involved in the vegetative propagation processes may be useful to mitigate environmental risks of clonal spread through vegetative reproduction. This review provides updates for recent field test results of GE and gene edited trees. Gene candidates related to vegetative reproduction including adventitious shooting (AS) and adventitious rooting (AR) are discussed herein as a means to mitigate unintended clonal spread from GE tree plantations.
Findings establish Cas7-11 as a precise and efficient RNA knockdown tool for functional studies in embryonic development and stem cell biology, providing a versatile alternative to DNA-based gene-editing approaches.
Huan Yan, Imtiaz Ul Hassan, Kai Yan et al.· Cell & Bioscience· 0 citations
A new method for surgically removing training examples from a model reveals that as datasets grow, the link between what a model learns and what it produces dissolves.
MIT News · Artificial Intelligence· news.mit.eduAug 17, 2026