scholarly journals Sugarcane Omics: An Update on the Current Status of Research and Crop Improvement

Plants ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Ali ◽  
Mehran Khan ◽  
Rahat Sharif ◽  
Muhammad Mujtaba ◽  
San-Ji Gao
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Genome Structure ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Marker Genes ◽  
Production Cycle ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses

Sugarcane is an important crop from Poaceae family, contributing about 80% of the total world’s sucrose with an annual value of around US$150 billion. In addition, sugarcane is utilized as a raw material for the production of bioethanol, which is an alternate source of renewable energy. Moving towards sugarcane omics, a remarkable success has been achieved in gene transfer from a wide variety of plant and non-plant sources to sugarcane, with the accessibility of efficient transformation systems, selectable marker genes, and genetic engineering gears. Genetic engineering techniques make possible to clone and characterize useful genes and also to improve commercially important traits in elite sugarcane clones that subsequently lead to the development of an ideal cultivar. Sugarcane is a complex polyploidy crop, and hence no single technique has been found to be the best for the confirmation of polygenic and phenotypic characteristics. To better understand the application of basic omics in sugarcane regarding agronomic characters and industrial quality traits as well as responses to diverse biotic and abiotic stresses, it is important to explore the physiology, genome structure, functional integrity, and collinearity of sugarcane with other more or less similar crops/plants. Genetic improvements in this crop are hampered by its complex genome, low fertility ratio, longer production cycle, and susceptibility to several biotic and abiotic stresses. Biotechnology interventions are expected to pave the way for addressing these obstacles and improving sugarcane crop. Thus, this review article highlights up to date information with respect to how advanced data of omics (genomics, transcriptomic, proteomics and metabolomics) can be employed to improve sugarcane crops.

scholarly journals Genetic Transformation of Sugarcane, Current Status and Future Prospects

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florencia Budeguer ◽  
Ramón Enrique ◽  
María Francisca Perera ◽  
Josefina Racedo ◽  
Atilio Pedro Castagnaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Genetic Transformation ◽  
Insect Resistance ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Insertion Site ◽  
Biofuel Production ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Transgenic Sugarcane ◽  
New Genotype

Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) is a tropical and sub-tropical, vegetative-propagated crop that contributes to approximately 80% of the sugar and 40% of the world’s biofuel production. Modern sugarcane cultivars are highly polyploid and aneuploid hybrids with extremely large genomes (>10 Gigabases), that have originated from artificial crosses between the two species, Saccharum officinarum and S. spontaneum. The genetic complexity and low fertility of sugarcane under natural growing conditions make traditional breeding improvement extremely laborious, costly and time-consuming. This, together with its vegetative propagation, which allows for stable transfer and multiplication of transgenes, make sugarcane a good candidate for crop improvement through genetic engineering. Genetic transformation has the potential to improve economically important properties in sugarcane as well as diversify sugarcane beyond traditional applications, such as sucrose production. Traits such as herbicide, disease and insect resistance, improved tolerance to cold, salt and drought and accumulation of sugar and biomass have been some of the areas of interest as far as the application of transgenic sugarcane is concerned. Although there have been much interest in developing transgenic sugarcane there are only three officially approved varieties for commercialization, all of them expressing insect-resistance and recently released in Brazil. Since the early 1990’s, different genetic transformation systems have been successfully developed in sugarcane, including electroporation, Agrobacterium tumefaciens and biobalistics. However, genetic transformation of sugarcane is a very laborious process, which relies heavily on intensive and sophisticated tissue culture and plant generation procedures that must be optimized for each new genotype to be transformed. Therefore, it remains a great technical challenge to develop an efficient transformation protocol for any sugarcane variety that has not been previously transformed. Additionally, once a transgenic event is obtained, molecular studies required for a commercial release by regulatory authorities, which include transgene insertion site, number of transgenes and gene expression levels, are all hindered by the genomic complexity and the lack of a complete sequenced reference genome for this crop. The objective of this review is to summarize current techniques and state of the art in sugarcane transformation and provide information on existing and future sugarcane improvement by genetic engineering.

Overcoming biotic and abiotic stresses in the Solanaceae through grafting: current status and future perspectives

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 272-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.D.H. Keatinge ◽  
L.-J. Lin ◽  
A.W. Ebert ◽  
W.Y. Chen ◽  
J.d'A. Hughes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Future Perspectives ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses

scholarly journals Gene Pyramiding for Sustainable Crop Improvement against Biotic and Abiotic Stresses

Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dormatey ◽  
Chao Sun ◽  
Kazim Ali ◽  
Jeffrey A. Coulter ◽  
Zhenzhen Bi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Insect Pest ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Gene Pyramiding ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Crop Species ◽  
Crop Tolerance ◽  
Modern Agriculture ◽  
Pest Infestation

Sustainable agricultural production is endangered by several ecological factors, such as drought, extreme temperatures, excessive salts, parasitic ailments, and insect pest infestation. These challenging environmental factors may have adverse effects on future agriculture production in many countries. In modern agriculture, conventional crop-breeding techniques alone are inadequate for achieving the increasing population’s food demand on a sustainable basis. The advancement of molecular genetics and related technologies are promising tools for the selection of new crop species. Gene pyramiding through marker-assisted selection (MAS) and other techniques have accelerated the development of durable resistant/tolerant lines with high accuracy in the shortest period of time for agricultural sustainability. Gene stacking has not been fully utilized for biotic stress resistance development and quality improvement in most of the major cultivated crops. This review emphasizes on gene pyramiding techniques that are being successfully deployed in modern agriculture for improving crop tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses for sustainable crop improvement.

scholarly journals Genome-wide characterization of WRKY gene family in Helianthus annuus L. and their expression profiles under biotic and abiotic stresses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chong Yang ◽  
Juanjuan Li ◽  
Faisal Islam ◽  
Luyang Hu ◽  
Jiansu Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Helianthus Annuus ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Plant Tolerance ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses

Abstract Background: WRKY transcription factors play important roles in various physiological processes and stress responses in flowering plants. However, the information about WRKY genes in Helianthus annuus L. (common sunflower) is limited. Results: Ninety WRKY (HaWRKY) genes were identified and renamed according to their locations on chromosomes. Further phylogenetic analyses classified them into four main groups including a species-specific WKKY group and HaWRKY genes within same group or subgroup generally showed similar exon-intron structures and motif compositions. The tandem and segmental duplication possibly contributed to the diversity and expansion of HaWRKY gene families. Synteny analyses of sunflower WRKY genes provided deep insight to the evolution of HaWRKY genes. Transcriptomic and qRT-PCR analyses of HaWRKY genes displayed distinct expression patterns in different plant tissues, as well as under various abiotic and biotic stresses. Conclusions: Ninety WRKY (HaWRKY) genes were identified from H. annuus L. and classified into four groups. Structures of HaWRKY proteins and their evolutionary characteristics were also investigated. The characterization of HaWRKY genes and their expression profiles under biotic and abiotic stresses in this study provide a foundation for further functional analyses of these genes. Therefore, these functional genes related to increasing the plant tolerance or improving the crop quality, could be applied for the crop improvement..

scholarly journals CURRENT STATUS OF TRANSGENIC COTTON-UTILITY OF GENOTYPE INDEPENDENT IN PLANTA APPROACHES FOR THE GENERATION OF TRANSGENICS

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kesiraju Karthik
Keyword(s):  
Tissue Culture ◽  
In Vitro Regeneration ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Transgenic Cotton ◽  
Current Status ◽  
In Planta ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Independent Manner ◽  
Gossypium Spp

Cotton (Gossypium spp.), is a mercantile crop plant is grown for its fluffy fiber and cotton seed oil in around 70 countries worldwide. Cotton is an economically important crop, shows erratic productivity under rain feed conditions; it is bogged down with many biotic and abiotic stresses. Due to lack of resistant germplasm, crop improvement through conventional breeding practices has been lagging. Genetic engineering offers numerous protocols to engineer plants to overcome stress. Biotechnological intervention for cotton improvement has begun three decades ago. The recalcitrance of cotton to tissue culture has been the major constraint for in vitro regeneration. Alternate methods that evade tissue culture regeneration steps have thus been envisaged. Till date there are very few standardized protocols that can be employed to develop transgenics in a genotype independent manner. Thus, genotype independent in planta transformation strategies have gained momentum in the present days, but reproducibility of reported protocols remains an amigna in many cases. In planta transformations holds prominence due to viability and ease in generation of transgenic cotton plants with in less time. This review focuses on grouping efforts made by different research groups in this senior. Several reports and standardizations have been focused that reports development of transgenic cotton.

scholarly journals Genome-wide characterization of WRKY gene family in Helianthus annuus L. and their expression profiles under biotic and abiotic stresses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chong Yang ◽  
Juanjuan Li ◽  
Faisal Islam ◽  
Luyang Hu ◽  
Jiansu Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Helianthus Annuus ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Gene Families ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses

Abstract Background: WRKY transcription factors play important roles in various physiological processes and stress responses in flowering plants. However, the information about WRKY genes in Helianthus annuus L. (common sunflower) is limited. Results: Ninety WRKY (HaWRKY) genes were identified and renamed according to their locations on chromosomes. Further phylogenetic analyses classified them into four main groups including a species-specific WKKY group and HaWRKY genes within same group or subgroup generally showed similar exon-intron structures and motif compositions. The tandem and segmental duplication possibly contributed to the diversity and expansion of HaWRKY gene families. Synteny analyses of sunflower WRKY genes provided deep insight to the evolution of HaWRKY genes. Transcriptomic and qRT-PCR analyses of HaWRKY genes displayed distinct expression patterns in different plant tissues, as well as under various abiotic and biotic stresses. Conclusions: Ninety WRKY (HaWRKY) genes were identified from H. annuus L. and classified into four groups. Structures of HaWRKY proteins and their evolutionary characteristics were also investigated. The characterization of HaWRKY genes and their expression profiles under biotic and abiotic stresses in this study provide a foundation for further functional analyses of these genes and will be beneficial to crop improvement.

scholarly journals Current Status of Mapping Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) for Different Traits and Marker Assisted Breeding in Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) – A Review

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Aswini Nunavath ◽  
Venkatraman Hegde ◽  
K. Gopala Krishna Murthy ◽  
V. Venkanna
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Markers ◽  
Fusarium Wilt ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Ascochyta Blight ◽  
Molecular Techniques ◽  
Genetic Maps ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Yield Reduction ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Advanced Backcross

Chickpea is one of the most important pulse crops having estimated genome size of 738 Mb. The crop is affected by various biotic and abiotic stresses causing significant yield reduction. During the recent past, some biotic stresses like fusarium wilt, ascochyta blight, botrytis grey mould and abiotic stresses like drought, heat and salinity were found to reduce the productivity, thereafter, these demands for development of high yielding early maturing chickpea varieties with resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Due to the advent of molecular techniques and availability of highly polymorphic and co-dominant microsatellite and other molecular markers, development of genetic maps for chickpea has progressed significantly. Molecular markers are now considered better than morphological and physiological characters for being stable, unaffected by environmental influences and easily detectable irrespective of their growth and development stages. The mapping of genes / QTLs for various traits like flowering time, yield and yield related traits, resistance to fusarium wilt, ascochyta blight, BGM, drought, salinity, heat may be useful in developing improved varieties of chickpea besides deeper understanding of genetics underlying the inheritance of the characters. The knowledge on mapped genes / QTLs for various traits of interest could help in integration of genomics-assisted breeding through various approaches like Marker Assisted Back Crossing, introgression of superior alleles from wild species through Advanced Backcross QTL, Marker Assisted Recurrent Selection and Genome Wide Selection for improving chickpea.

scholarly journals Serendipita indica changes host sugar and defense status in Arabidopsis thaliana: cooperation or exploitation?

Planta ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 253 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Opitz ◽  
Roshanak Daneshkhah ◽  
Cindy Lorenz ◽  
Roland Ludwig ◽  
Siegrid Steinkellner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Arabidopsis Thaliana ◽  
Endophytic Fungus ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Root Colonization ◽  
Growth Promotion ◽  
Sugar Metabolism ◽  
Defense Responses ◽  
Marker Genes ◽  
Wild Type ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses

Abstract Main conclusion Manipulation of sugar metabolism upon S. indica root colonization triggers changes in sugar pools and defense responses in A. thaliana. Abstract Serendipita indica is an endophytic fungus that establishes mutualistic relationships with many different plants including important crops as well as the model plant A. thaliana. Successful root colonization typically results in growth promotion and enhanced tolerance against various biotic and abiotic stresses. The fungus delivers phosphorus to the host and receives in exchange carbohydrates. There are hints that S. indica prefers hexoses, glucose, and fructose, products of saccharose cleavage driven by invertases (INVs) and sucrose synthases (SUSs). Carbohydrate metabolism in this interaction, however, remains still widely unexplored. Therefore, in this work, the sugar pools as well as the expression of SUSs and cytosolic INVs in plants colonized by S. indica were analyzed. Using sus1/2/3/4 and cinv1/2 mutants the importance of these genes for the induction of growth promotion and proper root colonization was demonstrated. Furthermore, the expression of several defense-related marker genes in both multiple mutants in comparison to the wild-type plants was determined. Our results show that in colonized A. thaliana plants S. indica manipulates the sugar metabolism by altering the expression of host’s INV and SUS and modulates both the sugar pools and plant defense in its favor. We conclude that the interaction A. thaliana–S. indica is a balancing act between cooperation and exploitation, in which sugar metabolism plays a crucial role. Small changes in this mechanism can lead to severe disruption resulting in the lack of growth promotion or altered colonization rate.

scholarly journals Tuning Beforehand: A Foresight on RNA Interference (RNAi) and In Vitro-Derived dsRNAs to Enhance Crop Resilience to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (14) ◽  
pp. 7687
Author(s):  
Eltayb Abdellatef ◽  
Nasrein Mohamed Kamal ◽  
Hisashi Tsujimoto
Keyword(s):  
Abiotic Stress ◽  
Rna Interference ◽  
Gene Silencing ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Transcriptional Gene Silencing ◽  
Biotic And Abiotic Stresses ◽  
Rnai Technology ◽  
Micro Rnas

Crop yield is severely affected by biotic and abiotic stresses. Plants adapt to these stresses mainly through gene expression reprogramming at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Recently, the exogenous application of double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) and RNA interference (RNAi) technology has emerged as a sustainable and publicly acceptable alternative to genetic transformation, hence, small RNAs (micro-RNAs and small interfering RNAs) have an important role in combating biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. RNAi limits the transcript level by either suppressing transcription (transcriptional gene silencing) or activating sequence-specific RNA degradation (post-transcriptional gene silencing). Using RNAi tools and their respective targets in abiotic stress responses in many crops is well documented. Many miRNAs families are reported in plant tolerance response or adaptation to drought, salinity, and temperature stresses. In biotic stress, the spray-induced gene silencing (SIGS) provides an intelligent method of using dsRNA as a trigger to silence target genes in pests and pathogens without producing side effects such as those caused by chemical pesticides. In this review, we focus on the potential of SIGS as the most recent application of RNAi in agriculture and point out the trends, challenges, and risks of production technologies. Additionally, we provide insights into the potential applications of exogenous RNAi against biotic stresses. We also review the current status of RNAi/miRNA tools and their respective targets on abiotic stress and the most common responsive miRNA families triggered by stress conditions in different crop species.

scholarly journals 652 Challenges and Opportunities for Application of Genetic Engineering to Horticultural Crop Improvement

HortScience ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 560B-560
Author(s):  
David A. Somers
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Crop Improvement ◽  
Genetically Engineered ◽  
Marker Genes ◽  
Horticultural Crop ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
Plant Improvement ◽  
Complex Genetics ◽  
Genetically Engineer ◽  
Improvement Programs

Genetic engineering offers numerous potentially useful genetic manipulations for the improvement of horticultural crops. Nevertheless, there are several impediments to the efficient integration of genetic engineering into plant improvement programs. The ability to regenerate plants from tissue cultures and, therefore, to genetically engineer most plant species is limited to specific genotypes. This may constrain introduction of genetically engineered traits into crops that have complex genetics, are highly heterozygous, or are propagated by asexual reproduction. Even in crops that are self-compatible, diploids, genotypic specificity of the transformation process often necessitates backcrossing for transfer of genetically engineered traits into elite lines and to reduce problems associated with tissue culture-induced genetic variation. This limits progress in improving other traits compared to other breeding strategies. Other challenges to applying genetic engineering exist. The major genomics initiatives currently underway for gene discovery from a broad range of organisms will provide plant improvers access to most genes. Yet there remains a dearth in tissue-specific, developmentally timed, and environmentally responsive promoters for appropriate expression of introduced genes (transgenes). Furthermore, transgene expression is not as controllable as desired due to transgene silencing. Transgene integration is a random process and further refinements of targeted DNA integration will likely enhance the stability of expression of transgenic traits. The availability of other tools, such as selectable marker genes, will become limiting as multiple transgenic traits are combined within a species. In addition to technical problems, there likely will be problems of access to proprietary technology and testing to meet federal regulations and public acceptance. While these various challenges and limitations currently may constrain progress in application of genetic engineering to horticultural crop improvement, it is foreseeable that with further improvements of genetic engineering technology and development of the appropriate molecular tools, genetic engineering will become a component of most plant improvement programs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document