Institutional Publications

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Millets for next generation climate-smart agriculture
(Frontiers Media S.A., 2017) Bandyopadhyay, Tirthankar; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Prasad, Manoj
Panicoids (subfamily: panicoideae) are a group of C4 grasses, which include agronomically important crops such as sorghum and maize, bioenergy feedstocks including sugarcane and miscanthus, nutri-cereals such as millets, and biofuel crops including switchgrass, napier grass and guinea grass. Among these, millets are known for their climate-resilient features including adaptation to a wide range of ecological conditions, less irrigational requirements, better growth and productivity in low nutrient input conditions, less reliance on synthetic fertilizers, and minimum vulnerability to environmental stresses (Kole et al., 2015). Also, millets are nutritionally superior to other major cereals as they are rich in dietary fibers, resistant starches, vitamins, essential amino acids, storage proteins and other bioactive compounds (Amadou et al., 2013). These attributes have made millets a crop of choice for cultivation in arid and semi-arid regions of the world; however, the less attempt has been made to study the climate-resilient features of millets compared to other major cereals. Among millets, foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and its wild progenitor, green foxtail (S. viridis) are extensively studied since they are considered as models for studying the traits related to C4 photosynthesis, stress biology, and bioenergy characteristics (Muthamilarasan and Prasad, 2015). The availability of genome sequence information of these two species (Bennetzen et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2012) has unlocked the wealth of information pertaining to stress tolerance and biofuel characteristics. It has also expedited the development of large-scale genomic resources for crop improvement. On the other hand, studies on other millets are still in their infancy. The challenge to feed the ever-growing population with a healthy balanced diet and the threats faced by agricultural crops due to changing climate highlight the immediate requirement to exploit the beneficial attributes of millets. This could be utilized for the improvement of millets per se as well as other related grass species. The extensive gene-level synteny shared between the grass genomes would facilitate the transfer and introgression of useful genes, alleles and quantitative trait loci (QTL) of agronomic importance identified in millets to other major cereals. In the above context, this article advocates for initiating extensive research on millets to dissect their agronomic, nutritional as well as stress tolerance traits and develop strategies to transfer the useful traits to cultivated major cereals such as rice, wheat, maize, and sorghum.
Genome-wide analysis of heat shock proteins in C4 model, foxtail millet identifies potential candidates for crop improvement under abiotic stress
(Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Singh, Roshan Kumar; Jaishankar, Jananee; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Shweta, Shweta; Dangi, Anand; Prasad, Manoj
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) perform significant roles in conferring abiotic stress tolerance to crop plants. In view of this, HSPs and their encoding genes were extensively characterized in several plant species; however, understanding their structure, organization, evolution and expression profiling in a naturally stress tolerant crop is necessary to delineate their precise roles in stress-responsive molecular machinery. In this context, the present study has been performed in C4 panicoid model, foxtail millet, which resulted in identification of 20, 9, 27, 20 and 37 genes belonging to SiHSP100, SiHSP90, SiHSP70, SiHSP60 and SisHSP families, respectively. Comprehensive in silico characterization of these genes followed by their expression profiling in response to dehydration, heat, salinity and cold stresses in foxtail millet cultivars contrastingly differing in stress tolerance revealed significant upregulation of several genes in tolerant cultivar. SisHSP-27 showed substantial higher expression in response to heat stress in tolerant cultivar, and its over-expression in yeast system conferred tolerance to several abiotic stresses. Methylation analysis of SiHSP genes suggested that, in susceptible cultivar, higher levels of methylation might be the reason for reduced expression of these genes during stress. Altogether, the study provides novel clues on the role of HSPs in conferring stress tolerance.
Application of genomics-assisted breeding for generation of climate resilient crops: progress and prospects
(Frontiers Media S.A., 2015) Kole, Chittaranjan; Muthamilarasan, Mehanathan; Henry, Robert; Edwards, David; Sharma, Rishu; Abberton, Michael; Batley, Jacqueline; Bentley, Alison; Blakeney, Michael; Bryant, John; Cai, Hongwei; Cakir, Mehmet; Cseke, Leland J.; Cockram, James; Oliveira, Antonio Costa de; Pace, Ciro De; Dempewolf, Hannes; Ellison, Shelby; Gepts, Paul; Greenland, Andy; Hall, Anthony; Hori, Kiyosumi; Hughes, Stephen; Humphreys, Mike W.; Iorizzo, Massimo; Ismail, Abdelbagi M.; Marshall, Athole; Mayes, Sean; Nguyen, Henry T.; Ogbonnaya, Francis C.; Ortiz, Rodomiro; Paterson, Andrew H.; Simon, Philipp W.; Tohme, Joe; Tuberosa, Roberto; Valliyodan, Babu; Varshney, Rajeev K.; Wullschleger, Stan D.; Yano, Masahiro; Prasad, Manoj
Climate change affects agricultural productivity worldwide. Increased prices of food commodities are the initial indication of drastic edible yield loss, which is expected to increase further due to global warming. This situation has compelled plant scientists to develop climate change-resilient crops, which can withstand broad-spectrum stresses such as drought, heat, cold, salinity, flood, submergence and pests, thus helping to deliver increased productivity. Genomics appears to be a promising tool for deciphering the stress responsiveness of crop species with adaptation traits or in wild relatives toward identifying underlying genes, alleles or quantitative trait loci. Molecular breeding approaches have proven helpful in enhancing the stress adaptation of crop plants, and recent advances in high-throughput sequencing and phenotyping platforms have transformed molecular breeding to genomics-assisted breeding (GAB). In view of this, the present review elaborates the progress and prospects of GAB for improving climate change resilience in crops, which is likely to play an ever increasing role in the effort to ensure global food security.

Institutional Publications

Browse

Filters

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results