Write notes on Applications of plant genetic engineering in abiotic stress tolerance.
Answers
Year: 2011 | Volume: 10 | Issue: 1 | Page No.: 1-22
DOI: 10.3923/biotech.2011.1.22
Genetic Engineering for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Agricultural Crops
Bidhan Roy, S.K. Noren, Asit 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.
FULLTEXT PDF FULLTEXT HTML
How to cite this article
Bidhan Roy, S.K. Noren, Asit B. Mandal and Asit K. Basu, 2011. Genetic Engineering for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Agricultural Crops. Biotechnology, 10: 1-22.
INTRODUCTION
Most crops growing under field conditions are often being exposed to various abiotic stresses. The complex field environment with its heterogenic conditions and global climate change are increasing day by day but a few of them challenges facing modern agriculture (Mittler and Blumwald, 2010). A combination of plant breeding approaches will likely be needed to improve significantly the abiotic stress tolerance of crops in the field. A number of abnormal environmental parameters, such as drought, salinity, cold, freezing, high temperature, waterlogging, high light intensity, UV-radiation, nutrient imbalances, metal toxicities, nutrient deficiencies, climate change etc. are collectively termed as abiotic stress. Only 10% of world's arable land may be categorized as free from stress. The rapid change in environmental conditions are likely to override the adaptive potential of plants, these environmental changes mainly originated from anthropogenic activities causing soil and air pollution, thus plants are exposed to natural climatic or edaphic stresses. Among abiotic stresses drought is the main abiotic factor as it affects 26% of arable area. Water stress is a single most severe, limitation to the productivity of rice in the rainfed ecosystem (Windawsky and O’Toole, 1990). Mineral toxicity/deficiencies are second in importance. Among mineral toxicity, salinity is wide spread and is estimated to affect 10% of the world land surface (Richards, 1995). Increasing salinization of arable land is expected to have devastating global effects, resulting in 30% land losses within the next 25 years and up to 50% by the year 2050 (Wang et al., 2003a). Soil acidity is another major problem common to tropical regions, which constitutes about 3.95 billion ha of land (FAO, 1991). Acid soils caused by combination of aluminium (Al) and manganese (Mn) toxicity are major constraints to soil fertility and crop productivity. Al toxicity problems are of enormous importance in production of rice, maize and sorghum. Low temperature stress accounts about 15% crop area worldwide and such stress mainly prevails in temperate zone.