Precision engineering of carbon partitioning enhances crop resilience to heat stress

With global warming, crop productivity is increasingly threatened by heat stress. Source-sink relations—critical yet vulnerable components of plant productivity, especially under climate extremes—have recently become the focus of innovative biotechnological interventions. Lou et al. (2024) successfully used prime editing to engineer heat-resilient crops by enhancing carbon partitioning, thereby mitigating yield losses without compromising quality. This groundbreaking strategy offers a promising pathway for developing climate-smart crops and achieving sustainable agriculture, with broad implications for the future of food security in a warming world.