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Advances in gene editing for legume improvement: technologies; progress; and prospects
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DOI：10.3389/fgeed.2026.1789952.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Legumes are among the most important protein-rich crops in global agri-food systems. To meet the rising protein demand of a growing population; significant efforts are underway to enhance legume yield; nutritional quality; and resilience to environmental stresses through the manipulation of key genetic traits. Advanced technologies-including genetic engineering; gene editing; genomic selection; next-generation sequencing; single-cell genomics; and multi-omics-are accelerating legume improvement due to their high precision and efficiency. This review focuses on major gene-editing technologies; namely; CRISPR/Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9); TALENs (Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases); ZFNs (Zinc Finger Nucleases); base editing (BE); and prime editing (PE); and their applications in key legume crops such as soybean (Glycine max); cowpea (Vigna unguiculata); chickpea (Cicer arietinum); groundnut (Arachis hypogaea); pea (Pisum sativum); barrel clover (Medicago truncatula); alfalfa (Medicago sativa); and Lotus japonicus. Among these platforms; CRISPR/Cas9 is the most widely adopted in legumes; largely due to its simplicity; versatility; and dependence on accurate genome sequence information and guide RNA (gRNA) design. Advances in next-generation sequencing and the growing availability of intuitive online gRNA design tools have streamlined CRISPR workflows; improving accessibility and precision. The present review indicates that CRISPR-P is the most used gRNA design tool in legume research; likely due to its early development for plant systems and integrated off-target prediction features. Therefore; alongside reviewing gene-editing applications; we emphasized the critical role of robust gRNA design tools as a foundation for successful genome editing. Future integration of artificial intelligence and large language models is expected to further enhance target prediction accuracy; minimize off-target effects; and enable more precise genome-editing strategies in legumes.
Keywords:
CRISPR/Cas9
gene editing
legume
TALEN
GRNA
ZFN
Journal
F
IF:
4.4
Papers:
82
Citations:
893
Organization
Cited Papers