Abstract
Drought is one of the several abiotic factors which restrict yield by preventing the expression of the full genetic potential of crops. Pearl millet is a principal crop of the semi-arid regions of the earth. It can grow in harsh climatic conditions having extreme heat and recurrent droughts. This feature makes it an ideal model for studying plant stress biology. However, due to relatively large genome size and current unavailability of annotated genome, gene-mining for specific traits in pearl millet has been challenging. Nevertheless, in the last few years, the scientific community has gained success toward identification of quantitative trait locus (QTL) for drought tolerance in pearl millet using plant breeding approaches. It has been discovered that pearl millet genotypes having a QTL for terminal drought tolerance contain a high ABA level in leaves and a lower rate of water loss through transpiration. Using molecular approaches such as subtractive hybridization, a number of drought-inducible genes have been identified. Recently proteomics and transcriptomics studies have revealed tissue-specific drought responsive proteome and underlying gene regulatory network. This chapter summarizes the current investigations that have been done to unearth the complexity of drought tolerance in pearl millet.
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