SUMMARY One can predict a future in which professional plant breeding, especially in the private sector, will be significantly scaled back, and advanced biotechnologies (e.g., genetic engineering) will be forbidden for use in plant breeding. Alternatively, one can predict a future in which commercialism will rule all sectors. But a more optimistic outlook predicts that the current tripartite division of responsibilities will prevail: Private Sector, Public Sector, and Participatory (i.e., farmer-breeder partnerships). The global plant breeding system is composed of separate organs, each essential for the survival of the whole but each with a different function. All parts work together for the good of the whole.
Microbial floras present in crop's vicinity and the soil are close partners of plants in all its developmental stages. These are capable of colonising the rhizosphere and phyllosphere as well as living inside the plant tissues as endophytes. The biodiversity of microbes has been observed with the association of plants from different genera and species. The overburdened population has put enormous pressure on modern agriculture and it has to be more productive, sustainable and environmentally friendly to support the future scenario. The use of beneficial micro-organisms (microbial inoculants) as alternatives to chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilisers in agriculture is needed for sustainable agriculture. The diverse range of activities as well as the number of microbes sorted out in different culture collections around the world may provide an important resource to rationalise the use of chemical fertilisers in agriculture.
Presently, sufficient availability of genome sequences data from different crops hastens the progress of breeding for any interested economic data. Plant breeding technologies are driven by modern biotechnology tools to speed up crop improvement programs. Technological advancement is the key to novel biotechnological research. Development of genome editing tools originated with zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and presently, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-associated CRISPR/Cas has made genome modification more efficient, precise and accurate to target any nucleotide within the gene of interest. Programmable nucleases, such as ZFNs, TALENs and the CRISPR-associated CRISPR/Cas, have revolutionised genome editing in plants, paving the way for novel applications in crop improvement. This chapter describes recent advances in genome editing, covering the underlying principles and molecular mechanisms.
Plant research has evolved as the vanguard of the genomics revolution. Among the projects at early stages, the sequencing of the recommended organism has previously proved a marked revolution for the research of a wide array of crops like corn and soybean. With crop and food bioengineering only at the beginning, the urge to clear the concept of fundamental genetic mechanisms of plants will only become more pressing. However, because genetic knowledge is gaining a lot of attention on a daily basis, we are familiar with eccentric new obstacles that permit new outlooks into the molecular basis of human metabolism under general as well as pathophysiological situations. Current technological achievements have made it conceivable to analyse instantaneously large sets of mRNA and/or proteins articulated in biological organs or to define genetic variations that are crucial for the individual stimuli of an organism to vary in its nutritional environment. Since the last decades, proteomics has gained a lot of attention for its technical aspect and theories. This imitates the promise and prospects of proteomics on one hand, and the urge for speculation in technology and expertise on the other hand. Proteomics covers the field of two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) and "brute force" identification. Although this technology can be revealing, proteomics goes far beyond 2-DE gels and instinctual force identification, as will expectantly become evident from this chapter. Plant proteomics is still in its development, but is likely to become an active field with a large influence on plant biology. Bids of the novel process of genome and proteome analysis will be the core for the innovation of nutritional biology in the coming centuries and its incorporation into the swiftly emerging approach of functional genomics and proteomics.
It is estimated that the world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050, necessitating a higher food demand across the globe. Also, climate change will likely reduce the yield of major food crops in the future, threatening the idea of sustainable agriculture. This will demand an increase in available genetically upgraded crop varieties, making the development of plant improvement methods a research priority. Contributing to the production of better quality plant varieties, novel biotechnological advancements have surely accelerated the crop development program. Considering this, we will discuss the available tools for agricultural development and the progress in alternative gene-editing methods like site-directed nucleases and CRISPR-Cas9 systems in agriculture development programs. The recent technologies are potent in overcoming the limitations that are linked to traditional methods of genetic engineering. Altogether, this chapter presents an inclusive update on the status of biotechnology in agriculture with a brief discussion on the concerns interrupting the extensive implementation of the genetically modified crops and the alternative techniques developed to address these issues. It is plausible that advancements in the crop improvement tools can significantly accelerate the crop yield and will be more accepted among consumers.
We are heading towards the saturation peaks in terms of genetic variations present naturally across the globe for crop plants. Agricultural productivity is highly dependent on the exploitation of natural variations to breed crops with improved traits. Biotechnological interventions in terms of new technologies such as new generation nucleases, CRISPR-Cas and so forth with the support of conventional mutation breeding and new generation techniques such as MutMap will provide the impetus to drive the future generation of crops. Genetic improvement with the help of advanced generation breeding in terms of variation created and gene pool generated will be enormous and in vitro culture and genetic transformation will sustain such varieties for the long term. These programs had limited success in the past because of their low efficiency, low reproducibility and less applicability among different genotypes of the same crop. In this chapter, we will investigate improvements of the mutation breeding and biotechnological techniques for crop plants, their limitations and their appropriateness for crop breeding.
Cole crops comprise economically and nutritionally important temperate vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, sprouting broccoli, brussels sprout, knolkhol and kale. With the increasing population and limited cultivable land available, there is a relative increase in the demand for nutritional vegetables. The productivity and quality of these cole crops are tremendously affected by both biotic and abiotic factors. Conventional breeding methods used to develop cole crops remain insufficient to overcome these situations. The field of biotechnology has revolutionized the breeding methods to develop cole crops. Tissue culture techniques, like anther culture, ovule culture, embryo culture, meristem culture and so forth, are extensively used to overcome biotic and abiotic stresses. With the advancement in the understanding of gene(s) and DNA, molecular approaches like marker-assisted selection, gene pyramidingand so forth, along with conventional breeding methods, have become more efficient. Genetic engineering approaches like gene transformation, gene editing techniques (clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas, transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs) hold immense potential to improve the quality of cole crops. Therefore, in this chapter, we have discussed different biotechnological methods such as tissue culture techniques, molecular breeding and genetic engineering that have been used for the improvement of cole crops.
The advent of omics-technology has generated countless avenues for crop improvement, encompassing all the dimensions of a biological process to get better insights into the regulatory framework of various physiological and developmental processes at genomic, proteomic and metabolomic levels. The integration of information generated through different computational tools has emerged as a novel strategy for functional biology and natural product(s) research by establishing genome-metabolome relations. Metabolites, the end products of gene expression and transcripts, the link between genotype and phenotype are the critical indicators of different physiological processes, therefore sequencing may aid in the functional characterisation of its corresponding gene(s) and protein(s). In recent years, integrated transcriptomics and metabolomics studies have become popular to identify key metabolic products of different biological processes, critical genes and enzymes responsible for the biosynthesis of various bioactive metabolites. The use of omics-platforms in combination with recombinant DNA tools have also been implemented for engineering plant metabolic networks to produce desired metabolites. Integrated-omics tools establish links among genes, proteins, metabolites and different physiological and morphological changes, therefore, a cointegrated approach of using omics and genetic engineering tools can be a fruitful and novel approach for the development of improved plant varieties with stress tolerance and enhanced yield. This chapter, therefore, provides an overview of different steps involved in transcriptomics, metabolomics and integrated omics technology. Moreover, the importance of omics-platform(s) in natural products research and in the development of efficient plant breeding/selection strategies for crop improvement has also been discussed in detail.
