Targeting of Metabolic Pathways for Genetic Engineering to Combat Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants
Abiotic stress is a serious threat to sustainable agriculture. Plant adaptation to suboptimal environmental conditions is controlled by cascades of molecular networks involved in stress perception, signal transduction, activation of new biochemical pathwa
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Abstract
Abiotic stress is a serious threat to sustainable agriculture. Plant adaptation to suboptimal environmental conditions is controlled by cascades of molecular networks involved in stress perception, signal transduction, activation of new biochemical pathways, and repression of others. Protective metabolic adaptations alter physiological homeostatic of the whole plant. Use of modern molecular biology tools for elucidating abiotic stress tolerance relies on expression of specific stress-related gene and gene encoding enzymes present in biosynthetic pathways of functional and structural metabolites. Paramount among the mechanisms are reactive oxygen species scavenging, maintenance of ion uptake and water balance, and accumulation of compatible solutes such as betaines, proline, and alcohol sugars. Instead of single gene manipulation approach, targeting the regulatory machinery involving transcription factors has emerged as new potent tool for developing stress-tolerant transgenic crops. Under this chapter we highlight recent advances to our knowledge that emphasize the development of transgenic crops with improved stress tolerance by targeting different genes of various metabolic pathways. Keywords
Abiotic stress
Reactive oxygen species
Transcription factors (TFs)
Metabolic engineering in plants
Introduction
S. Chamoli A.K. Verma (*) Department of Biochemistry, College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, G.B.P.U.A&T, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand 263145, India e-mail: [email protected]
Plants in natural environment encounter a wide range of unfavorable conditions such as flooding, drought, salinity, freezing, chilling, high temperature, and strong light or shade which collectively termed as abiotic stress. Abiotic stresses negatively influence growth and productivity of
R.K. Gaur and P. Sharma (eds.), Approaches to Plant Stress and their Management, DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1620-9_2, # Springer India 2014
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crop and, in extreme cases, cause death of the plant (Tony and Norio 2002). Among these abiotic stresses, drought and salinity are most severe limiting factors affecting the productivity of most field crops to variable degrees, depending on the onset time, duration, intensity of the stress, and degree of susceptibility of a plant species. It is expected that by the year 2050, more than 50 % of agriculture land of different geographical regions would be under drought and salinity (Wang et al. 2001). Stress perceptions are translated into cascade of altered, morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes in plants (Shinozaki and yamaguchi-shinozaki 1997a). Plants have evolved to adapt to adverse conditions through cross-wired metabolic pathways to reprogram the progression of development (Hirt 1997). Stress-mediated responses are trigged to reestablish homeostasis and to repair damaged protein. In contrast to plant resistance to biotic stresses, which is mostly dependent on monogenic traits, the genetically complex responses to abiotic stresses are multigenic and thus more
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