A 2°C climate-warming scenario is expected to further exacerbate average crop losses by 3%–13%, yet few heat-tolerant staple-crop varieties are available toward meeting future food demands. Here, we develop high-efficiency prime-editing tools to precisely knockin a 10-bp heat-shock element (HSE) into promoters of cell-wall-invertase genes (CWINs) in elite rice and tomato cultivars. HSE insertion endows CWINs with heat-responsive upregulation in both controlled and field environments to enhance carbon partitioning to grain and fruits, resulting in per-plot yield increases of 25% in rice cultivar Zhonghua11 and 33% in tomato cultivar Ailsa Craig over heat-stressed controls, without fruit quality penalties. Up to 41% of heat-induced grain losses were rescued in rice. Beyond a prime-editing system for tweaking gene expression by efficiently delivering bespoke changes into crop genomes, we demonstrate broad and robust utility for targeted knockin of cis-regulatory elements to optimize source-sink relations and boost crop climate resilience.

中文翻译：

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通过引物编辑工程源-汇关系赋予番茄和水稻热应激弹性


预计 2°C 的气候变暖情景将进一步加剧平均作物损失 3%-13%，但很少有耐热的主粮作物品种可用于满足未来的粮食需求。在这里，我们开发了高效的引物编辑工具，将 10 bp 热休克元件 （HSE） 精确敲入优质水稻和番茄品种中细胞壁转化酶基因 （CWINs） 的启动子中。HSE 插入赋予 CWIN 在受控和田间环境中的热响应上调，以增强与谷物和水果的碳分配，导致水稻品种中华 11 的每地产量增加 25%，番茄品种 Ailsa Craig 的每地产量增加 33%，与热胁迫控制相比，没有水果质量损失。高达 41% 的热诱导谷物损失在水稻中得到挽救。除了通过有效地向作物基因组提供定制变化来调整基因表达的引物编辑系统外，我们还展示了靶向敲入顺式调节元件的广泛而强大的效用，以优化源-汇关系并提高作物气候适应能力。