Genome-editing techniques are promising tools in plant breeding. To facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the use of genome editing, EU-SAGE developed an interactive, publicly accessible online database of genome-edited crop plants as described in peer-reviewed scientific publications.
The aim of the database is to inform interested stakeholder communities in a transparent manner about the latest evidence about the use of genome editing in crop plants. Different elements including the plant species, traits, techniques, and applications can be filtered in this database.
Regarding the methodology, a literature search in the bibliographic databases and web pages of governmental agencies was conducted using predefined queries in English. Identifying research articles in other languages was not possible due to language barriers. Patents were not screened.
Peer-reviewed articles were screened for relevance and were included in the database based on pre-defined criteria. The main criterium is that the research article should describe a research study of any crop plant in which a trait has been introduced that is relevant from an agricultural and/or food/feed perspective. The database does neither give information on the stage of development of the crop plant, nor on the existence of the intention to develop the described crop plants to be marketed.
This database will be regularly updated. Please contact us via the following webpage in case you would like to inform us about a new scientific study of crops developed for market-oriented agricultural production as a result of genome editing

Genome Editing Technique

Displaying 32 results

Traits related to biotic stress tolerance

Bacterial resistance: Resistance to Pseudomonas syringae DC3000, a widespread pathogen that causes bacterial speck disease of tomato.
(Ortigosa et al., 2019)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CNB-CSIC),Spain

Fungal resistance: increased tolerance to Late Blight disease, which could be devastating to tomato yields.
(Maioli et al., 2024)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
University of Torino, Italy
Ingeniero Fausto Elio/n, Spain
Wageningen University &
Research,
Viral resistance: partial resistance to Pepper veinal mottle virus (PVMV) isolate IC, with plants harboring weak symptoms and low virus loads at the systemic level.
(Moury et al., 2020)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
INRA, France
Université de Tunis El-Manar
Université de Carthage, Tunisia
Université Felix Houphouët-Boigny, Cote d’Ivoire
Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles, Burkina Faso
Fungal resistance: increased resistance to Botrytis cinerea.
(Perk et al., 2023)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
CONICET—Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina
Bacterial resistance: Strong resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae, causing bacterial blight, a devastating rice disease resulting in yield losses.
(Wang et al., 2017)
SDN1
TALENs
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Rapid detection of toxigenic Fusarium verticillioides, a phytopathogenic fungus that causes Fusarium ear and stalk rot and poses a threat to maize yields. This accurate and portable detection equipment has great potential for detection of the pathogen, even in areas lacking proper lab equipment.
( Liang et al., 2023 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Institute of Food Science and Technology
North Minzu University
School of Food Science and Engineering, China
Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Belgium
Fungal resistance: Resistance against the blast fungus Mangaporthe oryzae.
(Bundó et al., 2024)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Campus Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científcas (CSIC), Spain
Academia Sinica No 128, Taiwan

Traits related to abiotic stress tolerance

Increased drought-avoidance strategy.
( Maioli et al., 2024 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
University of Torino, Italy
Ingeniero Fausto Elio/n, Spain
Wageningen University &
Research, The Netherlands
Drought tolerance.
( Njuguna et al., 2018 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Ghent University
Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya
Increased tolerance to drought trough reducing water loss. Tuber development.
( Gonzales et al., 2020 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
Centro Nacional de Biotecnología – CSIC
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain
Increased root length, which can restore good performance under water stress.
( Gabay et al., 2023 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
University of California
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA
University of Haifa, Israel
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM), Argentina
Fudan University
China Agricultural University, China
Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Traits related to improved food/feed quality

Increased amylose content. Cereals high in amylose content (AC) and resistant starch (RS) offer potential health benefits and reduce risks of diseases such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and certain colon and rectum cancers.
( Sun et al., 2017 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China
University of California, USA
University of Liege, Belgium
Starch with an increased amylose ratio and elongated amylopectin chains. In food products, high amylose content and long amylopectin chains contribute to a low glycaemic index (GI) after intake, playing a role in health benefits.
( Zhao et al., 2021 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
Laboratorio de Agrobiotecnología (INTA), Argentina
Reduced gluten content. Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disorder triggered in genetically predisposed individuals by the ingestion of gluten proteins.
( Sánchez-León,et al., 2017 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible (IASCSIC), Spain
University of Minnesota, USA
Production of opaque seeds with depleted starch reserves. Reduced starch content and increased amylose content. Accumulation of multiple sugars, fatty acids, amino acids and phytosterols.
( Baysal et al., 2020 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
University of Lleida-Agrotecnio Center
Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Spain
Royal Holloway University of London, UK
Important metabolic changes affecting tomato fruit quality. Reduced contents of the anti-nutrient oxalic acid.
( Gago et al., 2017 )
SDN1
ZFN
University of Algarve, Portugal
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas
Technological Educational Institution of Crete, Greece

Traits related to increased plant yield and growth

Leaf inclination: the leaf angle is a trait that contributes to crop yield determination.
(Trionfini et al., 2023)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina
Improves complex traits such as yield and drought tolerance.
( Lorenzo et al., 2022 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Center for Plant Systems Biology
Ghent University
Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Belgium
Delay in the appearance of flower buds and increased yield.
( Beracochea et al., 2023 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas Y Técnicas (CONICET)
Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA), Argentina
Production of enlarged, dome-shaped leaves. Enlarged fruits with increased pericarp thickness due to cell expansion.
( Swinnen et al., 2022 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Ghent University
Center for Plant Systems Biology, Vives, Belgium
Université de Bordeaux, France

Traits related to industrial utilization

Doubled haploids with increased leaf size. Doubled haploid technology is used to obtain homozygous lines in a single generation. This technique significantly accelerates the crop breeding trajectory.
( Impens et al., 2023 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Ghent University
VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology
Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Belgium
Reduced lignin content and increased sugar release upon saccharification.
( De Meester et al., 2021 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Ghent University
VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium
35% reduction in lignin. Fourfold increase in cellulose-to-glucose conversion upon limited saccharification. Efficient saccharification is hindered by the presence of lignin in the secondary-thickened cell walls.
( de Vries et al., 2021 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Ghent University
VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium
Glycoproteins without plant-specific glycans. Plants or plant cells can be used to produce pharmacological glycoproteins, for example antibodies or vaccines. However these proteins carry N-glycans with plant-typical residues [β(1,2)-xylose and core α(1,3)-fucose]. This plant-specific glycans can greatly impact the immunogenicity, allergenicity, or activity of the protein.
( Mercx et al., 2017 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Université catholique de Louvain
Université de Liège, Belgium
Jointless tomatoes. Pedicel abscission is an important agronomic factor that controls yield and post-harvest fruit quality. In tomato, floral stems that remain attached to harvested fruits during picking mechanically damage the fruits during transportation, decreasing the fruit quality for fresh-market tomatoes and the pulp quality for processing tomatoes.
( Roldan et al., 2017 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay (IPS2), France
University of Liège, Belgium
Tailoring poplar lignin without yield penalty. Reduced recalcitrance.
( De Meester et al., 2020 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Ghent University
VIB Center for Plant Systems Biology
VIB Metabolomics Core, Belgium
Parthenocarpy: seedless tomatoes
(Nieves-Cordones et al., 2020)
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Centro de Edafología y Biología Aplicada del Segura-CSIC, Spain

Traits related to herbicide tolerance

Glyphosate & hppd inhibitor herbicides, for example tembotrione
( D'Halluin et al., 2013 )
SDN2
CRISPR/Cas
Bayer CropScience N.V, Belgium

Traits related to storage performance

Reduced enzymatic browning. The formation of dark-colored precipitates in fruits and vegetables causes undesirable changes in organoleptic properties and the loss of nutritional quality.
( Gonzalez et al., 2020 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
Laboratorio de Agrobiotecnología (INTA)
Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
Reduced fruit flesh browning. The browning of eggplant berry flesh after cutting has a negative impact on fruit quality for both industrial transformation and fresh consumption.
( Maioli et al., 2020 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
University of Torino, Italy
Instituto de Biologica Molecular y Celular de Plantas (IBMCP)
Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Delayed fruit ripening.
( Santo Domingo et al., 2024 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG)
Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio)
Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA), Spain
Improved strawberry fruit firmness. The postharvest shelf life is highly limited by the loss of firmness, making firmness one of the most important fruit quality traits.
( López-Casado et al., 2023 )
SDN1
CRISPR/Cas
Universidad de Málaga
Universidad de Córdoba, Spain