Low Gluten and Coeliac-Safe Wheat Through Gene Editing

Cereal consumption by humans is older than agriculture. During preceding eras, humans gradually acquired the necessary knowledge and tools for processing and cultivation of cereals, making themselves unconsciously prepared to become the first farmers when climate improved at the end of the last Ice Age, some 12 thousand years ago, in the Near East (Fertile Crescent) region. Early wheat cultivation in fields surrounded by wild relatives facilitated the occurrence of interspecific hybridizations; one of the resulting hybrids was bread wheat, with superior nutritional and food-technological qualities, largely due to the favourable composition of the gluten proteins in the grain. Bread wheat developed from that time into the commodity crop that it is nowadays.