CRISPR/Cas9 in plant biotechnology: applications and challenges.

The application of plant biotechnology to enhance beneficial traits in crops is now indispensable because of food insecurity due to increasing global population and climate change. The recent biotechnological development of the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated system 9 (Cas9) allows for a more simple and precise method of gene editing, which is now preferred compared to Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFNs) and Transcription Activator-like Effector Nucleases (TALENs). In this review, recent progress in utilizing CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in plants to enhance certain traits in beneficial crops, including rice, soybean, and oilseed rape, is discussed. In addition, novel methods of applying the CRISPR/Cas9 system in live cell imaging are also extensively reviewed. Despite all the applications, the existing delivery methods of CRISPR/Cas9 fail to provide consistent results and are inefficient for in planta transformation. Hence, research should be focused on improving current delivery methods or developing novel ones to facilitate CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing studies. Strict regulations on the sale and commercial growth of gene-edited crops have restricted more efforts in applying CRISPR/Cas9 technology in plant species. Therefore, a shift in public viewpoint toward gene editing would help to propel scientific progress rapidly.

Current updates and research on plant-based vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019.

The primary outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, causing pneumonia-like symptoms in patients named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had evolved into a global pandemic. COVID-19 has surpassed Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome in terms of rate and scale causing more than one million deaths. Development of an effective vaccine to fight against the spread of COVID-19 is the main goal of many countries around the world and plant-based vaccines are one of the available methods in vaccine developments. Plant-based vaccine has gained its reputation among researchers for its known effective manufacturing process and cost effectiveness. Many companies around the world are participating in the race to develop an effective vaccine by using the plant system. This review discusses different approaches used as well as highlights the challenges faced by various companies and research groups in developing the plant-based COVID-19 vaccine.