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8230390 
Journal Article 
Genome Editing: Targeting Susceptibility Genes for Plant Disease Resistance 
Zaidi, SS; Mukhtar, MS; Mansoor, S; , 
2018 
1 
Trends in Biotechnology
ISSN: 0167-7799 
898-906 
English 
29752192 
Plant pathogens pose a major threat to crop productivity. Typically, phytopathogens exploit plants' susceptibility (S) genes to facilitate their proliferation. Disrupting these S genes may interfere with the compatibility between the host and the pathogens and consequently provide broad-spectrum and durable disease resistance. In the past, genetic manipulation of such S genes has been shown to confer disease resistance in various economically important crops. Recent studies have accomplished this task in a transgene-free system using new genome editing tools, including clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR). In this Opinion article, we focus on the use of genome editing to target S genes for the development of transgene-free and durable disease-resistant crop varieties.