Write notes on Abiotic stress tolerance in transgenic crop plants.
Answers
B. Mandal and Asit K. Basu
Abstract
Abiotic stresses have become an integral part of crop production. One or other persist either in soil or in atmosphere. With the ultimate goal to raise the crop plants with better suitability towards rapidly changing environmental inputs, intense efforts are needed employing physiological, biochemical and molecular tools to improve tolerance ability under abiotic stresses. Attempts have been taken by plant breeders to develop tolerant varieties of different crops for specific abiotic stress. Appreciable improvement also has been done by the molecular biologists regarding to perturbations in gene expression and protein during stress. Employing transgenic technology, functional validation of various target genes involve in diverse processes, such as signaling, transcription, ion homeostasis, antioxidant defense etc. for enhanced abiotic stress tolerance has been attempted in various model system and some of them have been extended to crop plants. The information in the areas of gene and genetic engineering for improvement of crop plants against abiotic stresses are lying unorganized in different articles of journals and edited books. This information has been compiled in this review article in organized way with up-to-date citations, which will provide comprehensive literatures of recent advances.