Sharpening gene editing toolbox in Arabidopsis for plants

Arabidopsis thaliana is considered as an indispensable model system across various disciplines of modern plant biology. The short life cycle, well developed classical genetics, small genome, and a plethora of distinguishable phenotypic features make it the most preferred plant system for researchers globally. Owing to these advantages, it is highly explored to study plant-pathogen interaction, comparative omics, evolutionary plasticity, epigenetics, and recently being used for development of precision genome editing tools for plants. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated (Cas) protein system, discovered as a part of bacterial immune system is widely used as a molecular tool for targeted genome engineering. This tool superseded two well-established genome editing platforms, zinc finger nucleases and transcription activator-like effector nucleases. Here, we have discussed CRISPR/Cas based gene editing toolbox designed, sharpened and used in A. thaliana. This review focuses on pioneering innovations in CRISPR/Cas technology and subsequent application of these tools in A. thaliana which is leading to wider application of CRISPR toolbox for basic and translational research in other plants.