J Integr Plant Biol.

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Turbocharging crop breeding with integrated biotechnology for a climate-resilient future

Zhao Wang1,2,3†, Dandan Yang1,3† and Cao Xu1,2,3*   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Seed Innovation, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
    3. CAS-JIC Centre of Excellence for Plant and Microbial Science (CEPAMS), Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
    These authors contributed equally to this article.
    *Correspondence: Cao Xu (caoxu@genetics.ac.cn)
  • Received:2025-12-29 Accepted:2026-03-24 Online:2026-04-20
  • Supported by:
    This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32388101) and the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (YSBR-078).

Abstract: Global agriculture faces unprecedented challenges from climate change and population growth, creating an urgent demand for the rapid development of resilient and high-yielding crop varieties. Although conventional breeding has achieved substantial progress in crop improvement, it is increasingly constrained by bottlenecks in genetic diversity, efficiency, and the uncertainty of trait inheritance under complex environments. Recent advances in integrative biotechnology offer transformative opportunities to reconfigure crop improvement into a predictive and design-driven process. This review synthesizes these advances into an integrated, multidisciplinary framework for precise breeding of climate-resilient crops, emphasizing the need to move beyond descriptive data accumulation toward mechanistic integration and beyond single-trait modification toward systems-level design. By integrating genome-phenome-environment insights with artificial intelligence-powered predictive modeling, we envision the rise of precise breeding frameworks capable of rapidly delivering climate-resilient, high-yielding crops. Such approaches are critical to fortifying agricultural systems, mitigating climate vulnerability, and securing a sustainable food future.

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