A growing world population is demanding food and energy at the highest
pace in the history of human kind. Plant biotechnology oriented to sustainable and
competitive agriculture should lead a trail of innovation in order to address these
emerging needs. The last decade has been characterized by the explosive accumulation
of vast amounts of discoveries in the field of molecular biology. These achievements
have paved the way for the advent of novel developments in plant biotechnology.
Several new tools are being applied for genetic crop improvement every day, based on
breakthrough versatile platforms that are increasing effectiveness and speed in the
generation of new varieties of crops. The latest achievements are not only adaptations
or improvements of modern techniques such as intra- and cis-genesis and accelerated
breeding based on transgenics and null-segregants, meganucleases, and zinc finger
nucleases; they are also the dawn of new disruptive technologies that are reshaping the
paradigm of genetic improvement, as is the case with TALEN and CRISPR/Cas. Sitedirected
genome editing is becoming precise, cost-effective, versatile, and fast. These
new breeding platforms are leading the way to next generation biotechnology. This
chapter discusses the most recent updates and developments of new breeding
techniques, paradigmatic achievements, future perspectives, and challenges in the
context of plant biotechnology.
Keywords: Accelerated breeding, CRISPR/Cas, Genome editing, Intra-cisgenesis,
Meganucleases, Oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis, Reverse breeding,
Site-specific nucleases, Targeted mutagenesis, Transcription activator-like
effectors nucleases, Zinc finger nucleases.
