Gene edited disease resistant grapes

葡萄是世界上最具经济价值的水果作物之一，到2020年，葡萄的全球市场价值将达到1890亿美元。大多数葡萄品种属于葡萄品种，易患白粉病。这种真菌是全世界葡萄园最具破坏性的疾病。葡萄种植者使用大量的杀菌剂来对抗白粉病，确保葡萄的质量和产量。近年来，基因编辑使科学家能够直接改变农作物的基因组，从而创造出味道更好、产量更高、抗病能力更强的品种，从而彻底改变了植物育种。利用基因编辑技术，我们建议有针对性地敲除白粉病已知的疾病易感基因，使其失活。目前，市场上还没有抗白粉病的基因编辑葡萄品种。我们的目标是针对流行的酿酒葡萄品种，如霞多丽（Chardonnay）和黑皮诺（Pinot Noir），通过基因编辑生产出与传统品种基因相同的品系，只是病害易感基因会被破坏，从而产生的植物将具有更强的抗病能力。然后，这些抗病品种将被繁殖并出售给种植者，从而大大减少了农药的使用，并为采用我们葡萄藤的种植者减少了生产成本。

Grape is one of the most economically valuable fruit crops in the world with a global market value of $189 billion in 2020. Most grape cultivars belong to the species Vitis vinifera and are susceptible to powdery mildew. This fungus is the most destructive disease that plagues grape vineyards worldwide. Grape growers apply enormous amounts of fungicide in order to fight off powdery mildew and ensure adequate grape quality and yield. Gene editing has been revolutionizing plant breeding over recent years by allowing scientists to directly alter the genome of agricultural crops to create cultivars with superior taste, higher yield and disease resistance. Using gene editing technology, we propose making targeted knockouts of known disease susceptibility genes for powdery mildew to render them inactive. Currently, there are no gene edited grape cultivars with powdery mildew resistance on the market. We aim to target popular wine grape cultivars, such as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with gene editing to produce lines that are genetically identical to the traditional cultivar except that the disease susceptibility genes will be disrupted and the resulting plants will therefore possess superior disease resistance. These disease resistant cultivars would then be propagated and sold to growers, leading to drastic reductions in pesticide applications and production costs for growers who adopt our vines.