Drought resistance by engineering plant tissue-specific responses
Martignago, Damiano (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Rico Medina, Andrés (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Blasco Escámez, David (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Fontanet Manzaneque, Juan B. (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Caño Delgado, Ana I. (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)

Date:	2020
Abstract:	Drought is the primary cause of agricultural loss globally, and represents a major threat to food security. Currently, plant biotechnology stands as one of the most promising fields when it comes to developing crops that are able to produce high yields in water-limited conditions. From studies of Arabidopsis thaliana whole plants, the main response mechanisms to drought stress have been uncovered, and multiple drought resistance genes have already been engineered into crops. So far, most plants with enhanced drought resistance have displayed reduced crop yield, meaning that there is still a need to search for novel approaches that can uncouple drought resistance from plant growth. Our laboratory has recently shown that the receptors of brassinosteroid (BR) hormones use tissue-specific pathways to mediate different developmental responses during root growth. In Arabidopsis, we found that increasing BR receptors in the vascular plant tissues confers resistance to drought without penalizing growth, opening up an exceptional opportunity to investigate the mechanisms that confer drought resistance with cellular specificity in plants. In this review, we provide an overview of the most promising phenotypical drought traits that could be improved biotechnologically to obtain drought-tolerant cereals. In addition, we discuss how current genome editing technologies could help to identify and manipulate novel genes that might grant resistance to drought stress. In the upcoming years, we expect that sustainable solutions for enhancing crop production in water-limited environments will be identified through joint efforts.
Note:	Altres ajuts: CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya
Note:	Número d'acord de subvenció MINECO/BIO2016-78150-P
Note:	Número d'acord de subvenció EC/H2020/683163
Note:	Número d'acord de subvenció AGAUR/2017/SGR-718
Note:	Número d'acord de subvenció MINECO/SEV-2015-0533
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	article ; recerca ; publishedVersion
Subject:	Drought ; Arabidopsis ; Cereals ; Genome editing ; Cell-specific regulation
Published in:	Frontiers in plant science, Vol. 10 (January 2020) , art. 1676, ISSN 1664-462X

DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2019.01676
PMID: 32038670

19 p, 1.4 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (scientific output) > Experimental sciences > CRAG (Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles