ABSTRACT
Fungal infections have a huge influence on agriculture and are the cause of plant diseases, because they produce a variety of diseases including mildew, rots, blights, smuts and rusts. Plants use a combination of tools from two different mechanisms to defend themselves against pathogens known as host resistance. Plants may resist infection in some cases by not supplying the pathogen with the necessary nutrients. Fungal pathogens have overcome resistance mechanisms. Fungal resistance in important agricultural plants has been addressed using genome editing techniques, and functional evaluations of genes have replaced more traditional approaches. Genome-editing techniques have high efficiency. The CRISPR-Cas9 system can be used to produce mutants of plants with varying degree of pathogenicity as compared to the wild type. The Cas9 mutants assisted in the identification of novel resistance genotypes and maybe novel resistance genes will aid to combat against plant fungal diseases.
