Many people have never heard of the Goldenberry fruit (Physalis peruviana) before; it is a sweet tasting, minor crop that some consider to be a superfood because of its high nutritional value. However, it is underutilized and grown in only a few regions. Primarily grown in South America, goldenberry growers still rely on bushy crops that are “not really domesticated,” says Miguel Santo Domingo Martinez, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Zach Lippman, PhD, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Colombia is the main producer of goldenberries, with some additional production occurring in Peru, Ecuador, South Africa, and India. But the massive, sprawling plants are cumbersome. In order to enable large-scale production, the fruit’s growth habit and breeding process would have to be improved. Now, a team from the Lippman lab has used CRISPR to make the goldenberry easier to grow, opening up the possibility for large-scale farming. They report the development of high-quality genome assemblies alongside transformation and genome-editing approaches, used to rapidly modify goldenberry plant architecture by targeting the two sub-genome copies of the classical stem length regulator ERECTA. The CRISPR-edited crops could be key to breeding plants that are resistant to new diseases, pests, or drought. This work is published in Plants People Planet in the paper, “Engineering compact Physalis peruviana (goldenberry) to promote its potential as a global crop.” “By using CRISPR, you open up paths to new and more resilient food options,” said Blaine Fitzgerald, the greenhouse technician in the Lippman lab. “In an era…
