Viruses unleashed: Revolutionary approaches to gene transfer in plants

Gene editing has become the new era for crop improvement. Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer and tissue culture for that plant regeneration have become the bottleneck for the gene transfer. Plant viral vectors have emerged as a significant tool in plant genome editing. Vectors like tobacco rattle virus (TRV) and potato virus X (PVX) are particularly effective due to their broad host range, enabling their use across various plant species for crop improvement, disease resistance and functional genomics. An ideal viral vector should achieve high gene transfer efficiency while maintaining transient expression to minimize lasting genetic alterations for optimal results. Recent advancements in techniques such as virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) and virus-induced genome editing (VIGE) showcase the potential of these vectors for precise gene modifications is also discussed VIGS leverages the plants' innate antiviral response to silence target genes, enabling rapid functional analysis without permanent changes, while VIGE uses viral vectors to deliver cas9 components for targeted genome editing, minimizing off-target effects. However, challenges such as cargo size limitations and regulatory hurdles persist. The future direction of this field is anticipated to advance genome engineering via viral vectors in more sophisticated ways, including using these vectors for genome editing and cargo capacity optimization. This progress will open up new possibilities for the scientific community in plant genome engineering. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive understanding of the current and future potential of virus-mediated gene transfer in plant biotechnology, from the selection of suitable viral vectors to the stable integration of foreign genes into the plant genome and insights into the challenges and future prospects of virus-mediated gene transfer in plants are also presented.