Harnessing CRISPR-Cas technology to enhance rice resilience under abiotic and biotic stress.

The CRISPR-Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) genome-editing technology has become an effective and accurate tool for crop development, enabling targeted changes to genes linked to stress tolerance, agronomic performance, and yield. CRISPR-Cas-based technologies are increasingly used in rice (Oryza sativa L.), one of the world's most significant staple crops, to mitigate the negative impacts of disease stress and climate change on productivity. Abiotic factors, including drought, salinity, heat, and cold, as well as biotic challenges such as rice blast, bacterial blight, sheath blight, and insect pests, have a significant impact on rice cultivation and cause substantial yield losses globally. Recent advances in CRISPR/Cas9, base editing, and prime editing have enabled precise manipulation of stress-responsive genes, facilitating the development of climate-resilient and disease and pest-resistant rice varieties. This review summarizes the current progress in CRISPR-Cas-mediated rice improvement, highlighting key genes and molecular pathways involved in tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses. It also discusses emerging approaches such as transgene-free editing via ribonucleoprotein (RNP) delivery, and high-fidelity Cas variants that enhance editing efficiency and minimize off-target effects. Overall, CRISPR-Cas-based genome editing represents a promising and efficient approach for accelerating the development of high-yielding, climate-resilient, and stress-tolerant rice cultivars, thereby contributing significantly to sustainable rice production and global food security under changing environmental conditions.