Genetic Improvement for Abiotic Stress Responses

Abstract

Very often discussion on crop improvement against abiotic stresses employing conventional or traditional breeding and unconventional biotechnological approaches (i.e. molecular breeding and genetic engineering) is carried out at separate platforms. The use of molecular markers and transgenic techniques are just the means to an end of using breeding methods for production of stress tolerant crops. We include both the conventional and unconventional tools of crop improvement under the same umbrella in this paper. The conventional breeding approach takes a longer time to yield results. The selection of stress tolerance through use of DNA markers can enormously help in marker-aided selection. Genetic engineering can make a small but definite contribution to the breeding program. The recent upsurge in the science of structural genomics is leading to an accumulation of a huge wealth of literature on nucleotide sequences. Functional genomics is the science of understanding how the genome works through a control on the expression of genes. The analysis of proteins through proteomics approach is the most direct approach to define the gene function. Stress biotechnology research looks at microarray chip technology and proteomics research with great deal of optimism. The stress biotechnology research is limited by the non-availability of useful genes that would lead to desired genetic change. Therefore, any method that may enable identification, isolation and cloning of novel abiotic stress responsive genes will be a positive step.