The world stands at a new threshold today. As a planet, we face various challenges, and the key one is how to continue to produce enough food, feed, fiber, and fuel to support the burgeoning population. In the past, plant breeding and the ability to genetically engineer crops contributed to increasing food production. However, both approaches rely on random mixing or integration of genes, and the process can be unpredictable and time-consuming. Given the challenge of limited availability of natural resources and changing environmental conditions, the need to rapidly and precisely improve crops has become urgent. The discovery of CRISPR-associated endonucleases offers a precise yet versatile platform for rapid crop improvement. This review summarizes a brief history of the discovery of CRISPR-associated nucleases and their application in genome editing of various plant species. Also provided is an overview of several new endonucleases reported recently, which can be utilized for editing of specific genes in plants through various forms of DNA sequence alteration. Genome editing, with its ever-expanding toolset, increased efficiency, and its potential integration with the emerging synthetic biology approaches hold promise for efficient crop improvement to meet the challenge of supporting the needs of future generations.

中文翻译：

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CRISPR相关核酸酶：高效作物改良新时代的曙光。

今天，世界站在一个新的门槛上。作为一个星球，我们面临着各种挑战，其中关键是如何继续生产足够的食物、饲料、纤维和燃料来支持迅速增长的人口。过去，植物育种和转基因作物的能力有助于增加粮食产量。然而，这两种方法都依赖于基因的随机混合或整合，并且该过程可能是不可预测且耗时的。鉴于自然资源有限和环境条件不断变化的挑战，快速准确地改良作物的需求已变得紧迫。CRISPR 相关核酸内切酶的发现为快速改良作物提供了一个精确而多功能的平台。这篇综述总结了 CRISPR 相关核酸酶的发现及其在各种植物物种基因组编辑中的应用的简史。还提供了最近报道的几种新的核酸内切酶的概述，它们可用于通过各种形式的 DNA 序列改变来编辑植物中的特定基因。基因组编辑凭借其不断扩展的工具集、更高的效率以及与新兴合成生物学方法的潜在整合，有望实现有效的作物改良，以应对支持后代需求的挑战。