Chapter 14 - Role of omics tools in understanding the stress tolerance in legumes

Abstract

Legumes are a significant source of vital nutrients for humans and play a major role in agriculture, as it helps in improving soil nitrogen through the biological nitrogen fixation process. Biotic and abiotic stresses are the primary limiting factors for crop productivity that severely affect legume production worldwide. The molecular mechanism of stress tolerance is a complex process in legumes and requires higher knowledge-based approaches at the omics level for their better understanding. Omics techniques such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, and advanced computational tools help in generating sufficient data for the successful impact analysis induced by the stresses on legumes. Therefore more efforts should be given to the improvement of omics techniques for the development of numerous stress-tolerant legume varieties that can grow in adverse environmental conditions with increased productivity to support food and livelihood security, achieve land degradation neutrality, and enhance economic and ecological sustainability.