Figure 3.

An illustration of rice grain quality improvement through the CRISPR/Cas9 system. (A) Advantages of CRISPR-mediated gene editing over conventional breeding techniques to develop rice varieties with high grain quality. (B) An overview of the applications of CRISPR-Cas9 system in the functional genomics of rice grain quality improvement. The CRISPR-Cas9 system can be used for genome editing (via the introduction of point mutations, insertions or deletions), transcriptional regulation (via CRISPRi (CRISPR interference), activation, repression, or epigenetic modulation) or forward genetics screens (via the generation of loss-of-function, knock-down, or activation mutants using sgRNA libraries) for understanding the molecular basis of rice grain quality, which can lead to the generation of crop plants with excellent quality grain.