CRISPR/Cas13 for the Control of Plant Viruses

Abstract

Plant viruses are one of the main threats to crops and food security worldwide, being very difficult to monitor and control. Since there are no effective chemical products against plant viruses, using virus-resistant plants is often the only option. Many promising strategies have been developed to engineer virus resistance however, several setbacks have hampered their utility in agriculture. In prokaryotes, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins are players that are involved in the adaptative immune systems against viruses. They have been found and studied over the past decade and can be used as a rapid and simplified technology to develop resistance to viruses overcoming a lot of challenges faced by other techniques. The first CRISPR/Cas system studied was very useful for DNA targeting, but more recently identified types, using Cas13 proteins, that can specifically cleave single-stranded RNA in eukaryotic cells, have enabled a host of new opportunities, especially since most plant viruses have RNA genomes. This chapter aims to bring together the most up-to-date information about CRISPR/Cas13 systems to control plant viruses. We also discuss the limitations and future challenges of the use of CRISPR/Cas13 to produce virus-resistant plants for sustainable agriculture.