Xingzhu Feng

Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Triticeae Genomics and Genetics, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 2   
Received: 12 Feb., 2025    Accepted: 22 Mar., 2025    Published: 06 Apr., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a major food crop in the world, and its grain weight is one of the important traits that determine its yield. The TaGW2 gene is widely considered to be a key negative regulator of wheat grain size. With the development of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology, targeted modification of the TaGW2 gene has become an important molecular breeding strategy for improving wheat grain weight. In this study, the structural characteristics and expression patterns of the TaGW2 gene were systematically analyzed, an efficient CRISPR/Cas9 editing system was designed, mutant materials were constructed, and their grain phenotypes were deeply evaluated. The study showed that the TaGW2 knockout mutant showed significant improvements in grain length, grain width, and 1000-grain weight, and had no adverse effects on plant height and growth period. This study collected and summarized actual editing cases from multiple authoritative institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, CSIRO in Australia, and Nagoya University in Japan, verifying the wide applicability and breeding potential of TaGW2 editing in different genetic backgrounds. In this study, CRISPR/Cas9 technology was used to precisely edit the wheat TaGW2 gene in order to enhance the length, width, and 1000-grain weight of the grain, thereby improving the yield potential of wheat.

Wheat; TaGW2 gene; CRISPR/Cas9 editing; Grain weight improvement; Molecular breeding