The Concept of Chloroplast Transformation; Its Relevance Towards Food Security

Bushra Tabassum, Iqra Yousaf, Olawale Samuel Adeyinka, Rida Khalid, Anwar Khan

Abstract


The world population is expected to reach an estimated 9.2 billion by 2050 which means up to 70% increase in food production would be needed to feed the world. Moreover, climate changes pose yet another challenge to global food security. Genetic engineering is playing its role in modern agriculture to overcome food security challenges but for better crop production more biotechnological advances are required. Chloroplast genetic engineering provides a better alternative to nuclear genetic engineering due to its properties of precise transgene insertion through homologous recombination, lack of epigenetic changes and high transgene expression. We reviewed the fundamentals behind chloroplast transformation and divulge its various applications in nutritional enhancement and agricultural stress management. Furthermore, we provide recent efforts of Ribonucleic Acid interference (RNAi) technology in the transplastomic transformation towards insect-specific and environmentally friendly control measures. We envisage that targeted chloroplast genome editing could be a game changer in the future application of chloroplast transformation.

Keywords: Agricultural stress management; Chloroplast transformation; Genome editing; RNA interference; Transgenic crops  


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