Exploring all-author tripartite citation networks: A case study of gene editing

•Author tripartite analysis was explored by fusing with co-citation and coupling relations as a way of weighting the strength of direct citations.•The results validate more advantages of all-author tripartite citation (A-NWDC) networks in identifying core scholars than single perspective.•The A-NWDC networks provide a highly comprehensive and cohesive picture of main discipline structures of the entire research area.•The intellectual structure detection results in exclusive tripartite citation networks are optimal, verified by the content attribute.