Submission deadline: Sunday, 30^th November, 2025
Expected acceptance deadline: Tuesday, 31^st March, 2026
Expected publication schedule: Thursday, 30^th April, 2026

Genome editing technologies have revolutionized plant research and offer great potential for crop improvement. Among them, CRISPR/Cas, as a versatile, simple, and inexpensive system for genetic manipulation, has dominated the genome editing field over the past few years. The applications of CRISPR/Cas in both plant biological sciences and crop improvement are particularly important in the context of global climate change, as well as in addressing current agricultural, environmental, and ecological challenges. Members of the Cas12 family, including Cas12a, Cas12i1, Cas12i2, Cas12i3, Cas12j, Casδ, as well as their ancestor TnpB, which belong to the Class II Type V CRISPR system, have received extensive attention in recent years due to their smaller protein size and alternative protospacer adjacent motifs (PAMs) compared to the widely used Cas9, representing effective alternative genome editing toolkits for crop improvement.

To facilitate the publication of the latest advancements in Cas12-mediated plant genome editing and its applications in crop improvement, we sincerely encourage submissions of original research articles, brief communications, new technology and new resource articles (technical advances and big data resources), as well as review articles on topics relevant to this special issue. We truly believe that your expertise in this field and your personal involvement would greatly improve the scientific quality of the journal.

Topics:

1. Exploration of novel genome editing tools: This includes the discovery and characterization of previously undocumented genome editing tools, such as members of the Cas12 family and their ancestral variants. Research may focus on analyzing the editing properties, structural features, and optimization of these tools to enhance their editing efficiency, specificity, and applicability in mammalian and plant cells.

2. Technological Innovations: The development of various novel toolkits including multiplex gene editing, based editing, prime editing and homology-directed recombination (HDR), as well as their optimizations based on Cas12 family members, methods, BigData and platforms that facilitate the applications of these toolkits in crop improvement.

3. Generation of novel crop germplasm or functional characterizations of important agronomic genes: Generation of novel crop germplasm by employment of the above tools/toolkits. Elucidating the genetic and biochemical regulatory networks/pathways underlying important agronomic traits in crops by using the above tools/toolkits.

4. Methodologies for delivery of Cas12 tools/toolkits into plants for genome editing: Exploiting various methodologies on genotype-independent delivery of the above tools/toolkits for plant genome editing, including but not limited to virus-mediated delivery, cut-dip-budding (CDB) delivery, nanoparticle-mediated delivery systems.

Keywords: Cas12 family, Crop, Genome editing, Novel germplasm, TnpB, Toolkits

Guest Editors:

Jian-Kang Zhu

Southern University of Science and Technology, China

zhujk@sustech.edu.cn

https://iab.sustech.edu.cn/Research-details-id-27-pid-6.html

Lanqin Xia

Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), China

xialanqin@caas.cn

https://ics.caas.cn/en/scientists/researchgroups/cfcgab/185582.htm

Jinsheng Lai

China Agricultural University, China

jlai@cau.edu.cn
https://cab.cau.edu.cn/art/2017/6/9/art_27218_60.html

Submission Guidelines

Please refer to the Author Guidelines to prepare your manuscript. Submit your manuscript online at: https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/jipb. During submission, answer the question: " Is the manuscript submitted for special issue or special section?" by selecting the special issue title "Cas12-mediated Genome Editing in Plants" from the drop-down list.

Contact JIPB Editorial Office if you need any additional help:

Tel: +86-10-6283 6133

Email: jipb@ibcas.ac.cn 　

Journal website: https://www.jipb.net 　

                           https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17447909