BREEDIT: A Hybrid Approach to Advance Crop Breeding

Ensuring food security in the face of a rapidly growing global population and adapting to climate change is one of the most paramount challenges for 21st-century agriculture. Although advanced technologies are being employed to tackle this issue, conventional breeding is reaching its limits in terms of achieving significant crop improvement. The advent of CRISPR/Cas9-based gene-editing technologies has revolutionized plant breeding, providing a powerful tool to accelerate genetic advancements. However, many essential traits are regulated by complex networks of multiple small-effect genes, making their improvement challenging. To overcome these obstacles, there is need of introducing the gene discovery platform BREEDIT, an innovative system that integrates multiplex genome editing with traditional breeding methodologies. By enabling the simultaneous editing of entire gene families, BREEDIT bridges the gap between classical breeding and advanced genetic engineering. This approach accelerates the development of improved crop varieties by generating high-throughput mutant lines with desirable traits, such as enhanced yield and resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses. The application of BREEDIT spans staple crops such as maize, wheat, barley, and rice, demonstrating its transformative potential for global food security and sustainable agriculture. This review explores the core principles, applications, benefits, challenges, and future prospects of BREEDIT, establishing it as a pivotal innovation in next-generation crop improvement strategies.