The purpose of the “Genome Editing and Plant Breeding” document is to provide plant breeders with a more detailed understanding of the current state of genome editing in plants, and the information contained herein is current as of June 2020. The emphasis is on how genome editing works in nature, how the CRISPR-Cas systems have been repurposed for use in eukaryotic cells, and the applications of genome editing to plant breeding in some of the major food crops as well as in tobacco.

This report summarizes and extends the descriptions of genome editing technologies that are included in the main text of the "Literature Review on the Use of Biotechnology and Omics" document published by the CORESTA Tobacco Biotechnology and Omics (TBO) Task Force.