Recent advancement in OMICS approaches to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in legumes

Amjad Ali; Muhammad Tanveer Altaf; Muhammad Azhar Nadeem; Tolga Karaköy; Adnan Noor Shah; Hajra Azeem; Faheem Shehzad Baloch; Nurettin Baran; Tajamul Hussain; Saowapa Duangpan; Muhammad Aasim; Kyung-Hwan Boo; Nader R Abdelsalam; Mohamed E Hasan; Yong Suk Chung

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.952759

Recent advancement in OMICS approaches to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in legumes

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Sep 28:13:952759. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.952759. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technologies, Sivas University of Science and Technology, Sivas, Turkey.
² Department of Agricultural Engineering, Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan.
³ Department of Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences & Technology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan.
⁴ Bitkisel Uretim ve Teknolojileri Bolumu, Uygulamali Bilimler Faku Itesi, Mus Alparslan Universitesi, Mus, Turkey.
⁵ Laboratory of Plant Breeding and Climate Resilient Agriculture, Agricultural Innovation and Management Division, Faculty of Natural Resources, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Thailand.
⁶ Subtropical/Tropical Organism Gene Bank, Department of Biotechnology, College of Applied Life Science, Jeju National University, Jeju, South Korea.
⁷ Agricultural Botany Department, Faculty of Agriculture (Saba Basha), Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt.
⁸ Bioinformatics Department, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Research Institute, University of Sadat City, Sadat City, Egypt.
⁹ Department of Plant Resources and Environment, Jeju National University, Jeju, South Korea.

Abstract

The world is facing rapid climate change and a fast-growing global population. It is believed that the world population will be 9.7 billion in 2050. However, recent agriculture production is not enough to feed the current population of 7.9 billion people, which is causing a huge hunger problem. Therefore, feeding the 9.7 billion population in 2050 will be a huge target. Climate change is becoming a huge threat to global agricultural production, and it is expected to become the worst threat to it in the upcoming years. Keeping this in view, it is very important to breed climate-resilient plants. Legumes are considered an important pillar of the agriculture production system and a great source of high-quality protein, minerals, and vitamins. During the last two decades, advancements in OMICs technology revolutionized plant breeding and emerged as a crop-saving tool in wake of the climate change. Various OMICs approaches like Next-Generation sequencing (NGS), Transcriptomics, Proteomics, and Metabolomics have been used in legumes under abiotic stresses. The scientific community successfully utilized these platforms and investigated the Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL), linked markers through genome-wide association studies, and developed KASP markers that can be helpful for the marker-assisted breeding of legumes. Gene-editing techniques have been successfully proven for soybean, cowpea, chickpea, and model legumes such as Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus. A number of efforts have been made to perform gene editing in legumes. Moreover, the scientific community did a great job of identifying various genes involved in the metabolic pathways and utilizing the resulted information in the development of climate-resilient legume cultivars at a rapid pace. Keeping in view, this review highlights the contribution of OMICs approaches to abiotic stresses in legumes. We envisage that the presented information will be helpful for the scientific community to develop climate-resilient legume cultivars.

Keywords: climate change; drought stress; legumes; marker-assisted breeding; marker-trait association.

Publication types

Review