Domestication

Genome

Population

Biotechnology

Inbreeding

Biology

Gene

CRISPR

Genome editing

Demography

Plant disease resistance

Sociology

Genetics

Nature Biotechnology

Precise genome engineering of a handful of genes enables rapid domestication of wild tomato plants. Crop improvement by inbreeding often results in fitness penalties and loss of genetic diversity. We introduced desirable traits into four stress-tolerant wild-tomato accessions by using multiplex CRISPR–Cas9 editing of coding sequences, cis-regulatory regions or upstream open reading frames of genes associated with morphology, flower and fruit production, and ascorbic acid synthesis. Cas9-free progeny of edited plants had domesticated phenotypes yet retained parental disease resistance and salt tolerance.

Domestication of wild tomato is accelerated by genome editing