Recent efforts to increase Soybean (Glycine max L.) tolerance to abiotic stresses using CRISPR-Cas technology

In many countries, soybeans are an important cash crop because of their application in food, feed and biodiesel production. However, traditional breeding methods have limitations in producing the huge yields required by agriculture. Furthermore, soybean germplasm genetic diversity has decreased over time as a result of domestication and selective breeding. In this regard, novel molecular breeding technologies, including genome editing, have been developed to precisely modify agronomically desired characteristics such as yield, quality and abiotic/biotic stress tolerance. Biotic and abiotic stresses and the demand for higher crop yields and nutritional value are providing new difficulties to modern agriculture. Precision breeding utilizing CRISPR-Cas9 technology emerged as one of the most effective methods in crop production. Although many scientists are working on increasing soybean tolerance against different abiotic stresses, new modern approaches are still needed. This review discusses recent efforts devoted to solving salinity, drought and heat tolerance, flood resistance, disease resilience and crop improvement problems that utilized CRISPR-Cas9 technology. Furthermore, novel tools, such as virus-induced genome editing (VIGE) and omics-based approaches, integrated with the CRISPR/Cas9 platform, will be discussed. The opportunities and limitations of incorporating CRISPR technology into global agricultural systems are thoroughly examined. In total, we reviewed 54 papers from the NCBI database and the ScienceDirect portal. The outcomes highlighted in this work show the significance of CRISPR-Cas9 technology in improving soybean tolerance to abiotic stresses.