In the present scenario of a looming food crisis, improving per hectare rice productivity at a greater pace is among the topmost priorities of scientists and breeders. In the past decades, conventional, mutational, and marker-assisted breeding techniques have played a significant role in developing multiple desired rice varieties. However, due to certain limitations, these techniques cannot furnish the projected food security of the 2050 population’s aching stomachs. One of the possible options would be precise crop genome editing using various tools, viz., TALENs and CRISPR/Cas9 to resolve this multifaceted crisis. Initially, the potentiality of these technologies was tested only in the rice protoplasts. Later, the techniques were employed to edit calli with help of modified vectors, CRISPR variants, cassette cloning systems, and delivery methods. With the continuous technological advancements such as base editing, multiplexing, etc., the precision, rapidness, efficiency, reliability, potency, and range of applications of these platforms have increased and even been used for gene function studies. This leads to a revolution in the field of the rice improvement program, especially the stress tolerance against various pests and pathogens in which the susceptibility factors located within the rice genome are targeted through genome editing tools. Therefore, in this current article, we have summarized the advancements in the rice genome editing tools during the last decade concerning enhanced biotic stress tolerance. Additionally, we have focused on the regulatory aspects of genome editing with associated risks and limitations, and the prospects to reshape the rice genome for durable resistance to complex biotic stress.

Zinc binuclear cluster proteins (ZBC; Zn(II)₂Cys₆) are unique to the fungi kingdom and associated with a series of functions, viz., the utilization of macromolecules, stress tolerance, and most importantly, host–pathogen interactions by imparting virulence to the pathogen. Codon usage bias (CUB) is the phenomenon of using synonymous codons in a non-uniform fashion during the translation event, which has arisen because of interactions among evolutionary forces. The Zn(II)₂Cys₆ coding sequences from nine Ascomycetes plant pathogenic species and model system yeast were analysed for compositional and codon usage bias patterns. The clustering analysis diverged the Ascomycetes fungi into two clusters. The nucleotide compositional and relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) analysis indicated GC biasness toward Ascomycetes fungi compared with the model system S. cerevisiae, which tends to be AT-rich. Further, plant pathogenic Ascomycetes fungi belonging to cluster-2 showed a higher number of GC-rich high-frequency codons than cluster-1 and was exclusively AT-rich in S. cerevisiae. The current investigation also showed the mutual effect of the two evolutionary forces, viz. natural selection and compositional constraints, on the CUB of Zn(II)₂Cys₆ genes. The perseverance of GC-rich codons of Zn(II)₂Cys₆ in Ascomycetes could facilitate the invasion process. The findings of the current investigation show the role of CUB and nucleotide composition in the evolutionary divergence of Ascomycetes plant pathogens and paves the way to target specific codons and sequences to modulate host–pathogen interactions through genome editing and functional genomics tools.