Chinese Researchers Unveil Prime-Editing Tool That Works Tenfold Better in Soybean, Tomato Crops
02 November 2026, Beijing, CN: A research team at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, has developed a new gene-editing system that makes a precision technique called prime editing dramatically more effective in broadleaf crops, a category of plants that has long resisted efficient genetic tools compared with cereal grains such as rice and wheat.
The system, named SmartPE, was described in the journal Nature Plants in late October. According to the institute’s own announcement and independent reporting that followed, SmartPE raised editing efficiency by as much as tenfold over conventional prime-editing methods when tested in three economically important broadleaf crops: tomato, soybean, and rapeseed, also known as canola. The team also reported the ability to edit several genes at once, a capability known as multiplexing, which saves breeders time compared with editing one gene at a time across multiple generations of plants.
Prime editing is a refinement of CRISPR-based gene editing. Standard CRISPR tools work by cutting both strands of a DNA molecule at a targeted spot, then relying on the cell’s own repair machinery to fix the cut, which can introduce unwanted errors. Prime editing instead uses a modified set of molecular tools, built around an enzyme called a reverse transcriptase paired with a guide molecule, to directly rewrite a small, precise stretch of genetic code without breaking both DNA strands. This lowers the risk of unintended mutations and allows for more exact, letter-by-letter changes, such as swapping a single gene variant for one that confers drought tolerance or disease resistance.
Narrowing a Longstanding Editing Gap
Despite those advantages, prime editing has historically performed far better in monocot crops, the grass family that includes rice, wheat, and maize, than in dicots, the broader category of flowering plants with two seed leaves that includes most vegetables, legumes, and oilseed crops. Researchers attribute the gap to differences in how dicot cells repair DNA and express the editing machinery once it is introduced. That mismatch has made it harder for seed companies and public breeding programs to apply the most precise gene-editing tools to high-value dicot crops at the same pace as cereal breeding.
SmartPE is aimed squarely at closing that gap. The institute’s researchers targeted genes linked to plant development and to responses to environmental stress, categories that cover traits such as flowering time, fruit or seed formation, and tolerance to heat, drought, or salinity. Because the underlying editing approach alters only a short genetic sequence rather than inserting foreign DNA, crops edited this way can, in many jurisdictions, avoid the regulatory pathway applied to conventional genetically modified organisms, which require a foreign gene to be inserted from another species. That distinction matters commercially, since it can shorten the time and cost needed to bring an edited variety to market in regions that regulate gene-edited and transgenic crops differently.
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