Gene edited disease resistant grapes

葡萄是世界上最具经济价值的水果作物之一，2020年全球市场价值为1890亿美元。大多数葡萄品种属于葡萄属，对白粉病很敏感。这种真菌是困扰全世界葡萄园的最具破坏性的疾病。葡萄种植者大量使用杀菌剂，以对抗白粉病，确保足够的葡萄质量和产量。近年来，基因编辑正在给植物育种带来革命性的变化，科学家们可以直接改变农作物的基因组，创造出味道更好、产量更高、抗病的品种。利用基因编辑技术，我们建议有针对性地敲除白粉病的已知疾病易感基因，使其处于非活性状态。目前，市场上尚无抗白粉病基因编辑葡萄品种。我们的目标是针对广受欢迎的酿酒葡萄品种，如霞多丽和黑比诺，进行基因编辑，以产生与传统品种在遗传上相同的品系，只是疾病易感基因将被扰乱，从而产生的植物将具有更好的抗病能力。然后，这些抗病品种将被繁殖并出售给种植者，从而大幅降低采用我们葡萄的种植者的杀虫剂使用量和生产成本。

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.