Engineering crop resilience with synthetic gene circuits

Muhammad Kamran; Mark T Waters

doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2025.01.005

Engineering crop resilience with synthetic gene circuits

Trends Plant Sci. 2025 Jun;30(6):582-584. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2025.01.005. Epub 2025 Jan 30.

Authors

Muhammad Kamran¹, Mark T Waters²

Affiliations

¹ School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia. Electronic address: muhammad.kamran@uwa.edu.au.
² School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.

PMID: 39890502
DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2025.01.005

Abstract

Engineering crops to withstand environmental stresses is critical for addressing climate change and food insecurity. Recently, Khan et al. developed CRISPR interference (CRISPRi)-based synthetic gene circuits to program gene expression in plants. Their findings highlight the potential of these circuits to advance the development of stress-resilient crops.

Keywords: engineering crops; genetic circuits; stress tolerance.

MeSH terms

CRISPR-Cas Systems
Crops, Agricultural* / genetics
Crops, Agricultural* / physiology
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Gene Regulatory Networks*
Genes, Synthetic*
Genetic Engineering* / methods
Plants, Genetically Modified / genetics
Stress, Physiological / genetics