Genomic Strategies for Improving Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants

Abiotic stresses which adversely affect agricultural production are a serious global concern for food security. Environmental stresses such as drought, salinity, high temperature and frost are predicted to worsen with the anticipated climate change. Hence, production of stress tolerant crops is urgently required for ensuring future food security. Traditional crop improvement approaches have almost reached their limits and will not provide any further gain. Use of genomics approaches is gaining importance and leading to a new revolution of plant breeding for abiotic stress tolerance. Advances in genomics technologies have allowed an in-depth analysis of crop genomes and have enhanced our understanding of the complexity of the mechanisms governing abiotic stress tolerance. For example, next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are allowing the mass sequencing of genomes and transcriptomes, thus producing a vast array of genomic information. The analysis of NGS data by means of bioinformatics developments have allowed discovery of new genes and regulatory sequences controlling important traits. Also, with the generation of innumerable number of markers and their use in genome-wide association studies, many genomic regions associated with important traits related to abiotic stress tolerance have been identified. This review provides an overview of the various genomics approaches available for crop improvement against abiotic stresses and their successes and failures in different crops. The chapter will be useful particularly for the students and scientists in genomics research and also to the larger community of researchers who have recognized the potential of genomics research and are beginning to explore the technologies involved.