Global agriculture is increasingly challenged by climate change, shrinking arable land, rising population pressure and escalating biotic and abiotic stresses, necessitating next-generation strategies for sustainable crop improvement. Conventional breeding and transgenic approaches have significantly improved crop performance by enhancing yield, stress resilience, nutritional quality and disease resistance through increased biomass, improved harvest index and reproductive efficiency. however, their limitations in precision, speed and multi-trait integration have accelerated the adoption of synthetic biology as an advanced engineering driven framework for crop improvement. Synthetic biology integrates molecular biology, computational design, genome engineering, metabolic pathway reconstruction and systems biology to develop programmable plant systems with enhanced productivity, resilience and nutritional quality. This review comprehensively explores major synthetic biology tools, including CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing, base and prime editing, synthetic promoters, regulatory networks, genetic circuits, metabolic engineering, de novo genome synthesis, protein engineering and Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) frameworks for precise trait manipulation. Particular emphasis is given to engineering tolerance against drought, heat, salinity and soil-related stresses through rewiring stress-responsive pathways, osmolyte biosynthesis, antioxidant defense systems, ion transport mechanisms and plant-microbiome interactions. Recent breakthroughs in multiplex genome editing, synthetic chromosomes, biosensors and multi-trait engineering for climate-resilient crops are also highlighted. Furthermore, the review critically examines existing challenges, including metabolic burden, genetic instability, biosafety concerns, regulatory complexities and public acceptance barriers. Overall, synthetic biology represents a transformative paradigm capable of redesigning crop systems for enhanced stress resilience, yield stability and sustainable agricultural production under rapidly changing global environmental conditions.
Scutellaria baicalensis is a medicinal plant with diverse pharmacological activities, typically used after post-harvest processing. However, the effects of different processing methods on its chemical composition remain inadequately understood. This study compared five processing workflows: sun-drying (CK), oven-drying at 50 °C (DS), shade-drying to 20
Praxelis clematidea (Griseb.) R.M. King H. Rob. (Asteraceae) is an invasive plant recently reported from Bangladesh. This study evaluated its preliminary phytochemical profile, antimicrobial activity, and allelopathic potential. Qualitative screening detected alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, and saponins, while steroids and glycosides were not detected. Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) produced four visible bands with Rf values of 0.43, 0.50, 0.65, and 0.85, which were tentatively assigned to alkaloid, tannin, flavonoid, and terpenoid classes, respectively. The crude methanolic extract (100 mg/mL) showed inhibition against all five tested microorganisms, with the largest zone against Aspergillus niger (21.45 mm), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (17.77 mm), Escherichia coli (17.71 mm), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (16.27 mm), and Candida albicans (12.55 mm). In the allelopathic assay, aqueous extracts significantly reduced seed germination and seedling growth of Cenchrus purpureus and Amaranthus tricolor. Notably, the methanolic treatment (T₁) completely suppressed seed germination and seedling development in both species, resulting in 100
Salinity is a major abiotic stressor that limits crop growth and productivity by disrupting key physiological processes. Lentil, a significant pulse crop, is particularly vulnerable to salinity, highlighting the need to identify effective approaches for improving salt-stress responses. The present laboratory- and pot-based study evaluated the effects of salicylic acid (SA) and glycine betaine (GB), applied individually and in combination, to evaluate their effect on salt-stress responses in two lentil cultivars, PDL-1 and L 4147, previously characterized as salt-tolerant and salt-sensitive, respectively. Salt stress markedly inhibited seedling growth and biomass accumulation, seed vigor, photosynthetic pigment contents, chlorophyll stability index (CSI), and relative water content (RWC), with greater reductions generally observed in L 4147. Exogenous SA and GB alleviated these effects, while combined application of SA and GB produced greater improvements in several measured traits, including germination, seed vigor, seedling growth and biomass, photosynthetic pigments, CSI, and RWC. Significant differences were observed among treatments and between cultivars. Pearson correlation and principal component analyses further revealed associations among the measured traits, with PC1 explaining 96.95
Carob (Ceratonia siliqua L.) cultivation in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) faces significant losses from the carob moth (Ectomyelois ceratoniae). This study integrates producer behavior analysis with the development of an O-carboxymethyl chitosan-azadirachtin nano-biopesticide (Aza@o-CMC). A structured survey (n = 100) identified vendor dependency as the primary driver of risky pesticide behaviors (OR = 1.89, p = 0.018). The nano-biopesticide exhibited optimal physicochemical properties (319.7 nm, PDI 0.173, zeta potential − 30.6 mV, encapsulation efficiency 84.2
