Prospects of nano- and peptide-carriers to deliver CRISPR cargos in plants to edit across and beyond central dogma

The discovery and repurposing of CRISPR/Cas have accelerated the process of precise genetic engineering to improve the yield, nutrition, and climate resilience of plants. The development of new Cas variants further empowered molecular biologists to understand and modulate the tightly regulated information flow across (DNA → RNA → protein) and beyond (epigenome and metabolome) the central dogma. However, contemporary approaches to deliver and perform CRISPR-mediated editing in plants are costly, resource-intensive, time-consuming, and have limitations such as low efficiency, tissue damage, narrow species range and restricted capacity to deliver cargo. Recent work on nano- and peptide-carriers (NC and PC) to deliver biomolecules (DNA/RNA/proteins/ribonucleoproteins) in plants exhibits the potential to address the difficulties associated with conventional techniques and further intensify the process of genetic transformation. The tunable physicochemical properties of NC and PC can be altered with acute precision to leverage their interactive capabilities displayed with biological matter, thus enabling them to traverse through the cellular barriers to deliver biomolecules. Currently, the area of NC- and PC-assisted delivery of biomolecules is in infancy and demands consolidated efforts at the interface of nanotechnology, proteomics, and plant transgenics to become a competent alternative to existing genetic transformation methods. Here, we have contextualized the advances in NC, PC, and NC–PC conjugates which makes them particularly attractive to deliver biomolecules in plants. Prominent challenges, limitations, and prospects of these carriers to deliver and perform CRISPR editing in plants are discussed. Lastly, a summary of the regulatory and safety aspects of these tiny techs is provided. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.