Genetic manipulation for abiotic stress resistance traits in crops

Abstract

Abiotic stresses are major limiting factors that pose severe threats to agricultural production. Conventional breeding has significantly improved crop productivity in the last century, but traditional breeding has reached its maximum capacity due to the multigenic nature of abiotic stresses. Alternatively, biotechnological approaches could provide new opportunities for producing crops that can adapt to the fast-changing environment and still produce high yields under severe environmental stress conditions. Many stress-related genes have been identified and manipulated to generate stress-tolerant plants in the past decades, which could lead to further increase in food production in most countries of the world. This review focuses on the recent progress in using transgenic technology and gene editing technology to improve abiotic stress tolerance in plants, and highlights the potential of using genetic engineering to secure food and fiber supply in a world with an increasing population yet decreasing land and water availability for food production and fast-changing climate that will be largely hostile to agriculture.

Plants’ Response Mechanisms to Salinity Stress

“…Conventional breeding’s limited success in enhancing plant stress tolerance can also be attributed to breeders’ inclination to test genetic materials under ideal conditions. Additionally, the intricate nature of abiotic stresses and plants’ varying sensitivity to these stresses at different developmental stages further complicate the selection criteria for increased salt-stress tolerance [ 151 ]. In addition to conventional breeding, breeding strategies such as mutational breeding [ 152 ], double haploid production [ 153 ], and marker-assisted breeding [ 154 ] seem to be more attractive alternatives that could contribute to the development of salt-tolerant crops.…”

CRISPR/Cas9-Targeted Disruption of Two Highly Homologous Arabidopsis thaliana DSS1 Genes with Roles in Development and the Oxidative Stress Response

“…One of the most important goals of modern plant science is to identify new factors involved in the efforts of plants to maintain cellular homeostasis and overcome the effects of stress [40]. The results of intensive research on this topic can be used to improve agricultural productivity by sophisticated genetic engineering [41,42].…”

Metabolic pathways engineering for drought or/and heat tolerance in cereals

“…Altogether, induction of ROS detoxification enzymes has been distinguished as a common response to D+H stress combination in various plant species, suggesting that enhanced antioxidant capacity is associated with plant tolerance to stress combination ( Ahanger et al., 2017 ; Zhang and Sonnewald, 2017 ; Zandalinas et al., 2018 ). Several other D+H stress-responsive genes have been identified ( Priya et al., 2019a ; Esmaeili et al., 2022 ) ( Table 1 ).…”

“…To date, several studies have generated stress tolerant phenotypes by manipulating single traits/genes through the target-gene approach ( Umezawa et al., 2006 ; Reguera et al., 2012 ; Esmaeili et al., 2022 ). However, the polygenic nature and complexity of D/+H tolerance suggest that multiple genes or pathways participate in stress response ( Shinozaki and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, 2007 ; Blum, 2011 ; Fang and Xiong, 2015 ; Zhang et al., 2022a ), and therefore, conspire against the continued reliant on single-gene targeting to improve such traits; it may not achieve the desire outcome, or may cause inhibition effects on other protein functions or downstream pathways ( Zhu et al., 2019 ; Sharma et al., 2021 ).…”