Effect of growth regulators and Physiological Gradients on the High frequency plant regeneration from the long-term callus cultures of different germplasms of Rice (Oryza sativa L.)

Callus cultures of rice were initiated from mature embryos of different cultivars on LS medium containing 2 mg/L 2,4-D. Increasing concentrations of 2,4-D and 2,4-5T also increased the frequency of callus initiation in all the cultivars tested. Of different cultivars, Tellahamsa was found to be superior for callus initiation. Genotypic differences for plant regeneration were also observed. Cultivar Tellahamsa showed the highest (65-75%) frequency of plant differentiation followed by DGWG, Yerragaluvadlu, Surekha, Basmati-370, Bala, Chakko amubi, Jaya and IR-8. Callus cultures of rice cultivar Bala grown on a shoot-forming medium (LS + 1 mg/L IAA + 4 mg/L KN + 2% sucrose) were exposed to gibberellic acid and abscisic acid for varying lengths of time and at different periods during culture. Gibberellic acid totally suppressed the organogenesis in callus cultures of rice. The results suggest that if the tissue accumulated sufficient gibberellic acid prior to the initiation of meristemoids and shoot primordia, repression of shoot formation occurred. This repression was not reversed by increasing the levels of IAA and KN in the medium, but abscisic acid could partially overcome the gibberellic acid repression of shoot formation in rice callus. It has been observed in rice that shoots usually emerge from the basal portions of callus. This observation suggested that perhaps physiological gradients of materials were operative during the organ initiation process. To test this hypothesis, starch content and the enzyme activity of malate dehydrogenase in upper and lower portions of shoot-forming and non-shoot-forming callus were determined. Starch began to accumulate in both upper and lower portions of the shoot forming tissues within 4 days of culture. The rate of accumulation however, was faster and more in the lower portion of the callus leading to a peak of accumulation on day 8 in culture, i.e., prior to shoot formation. Non-shoot-forming callus cultures accumulated little starch during the same period of culture. Malate dehydrogenase (MDH) activity was examined in order to know the overall rate of respiration. In the upper segment of shoot-forming callus, the activity of MDH was very high by day 4 but declined continuously thereafter. The rate of activity of the enzyme was significantly higher beyond four days in culture in case of the lower portion of the shoot forming callus. Enzyme activity was lower in the non-shoot-forming portions (both upper and lower) of the callus. The higher rate of enzyme activity for the upper portion of the tissue could be attributed to increased oxygen availability. Thus, the evidence for the idea that concentrations of gradients or physiological gradients of substances into the callus tissue may be the operative factors promoting organ initiation in vitro is presented

Plant Cell Cultures : Biofactories for the Production of Bioactive Compounds

Plants have long been exploited as a sustainable source of food, flavors, agrochemicals, colors, therapeutic proteins, bioactive compounds, and stem cell production. However, plant habitats are being briskly lost due to scores of environmental factors and human disturbances. This necessitates finding a viable alternative technology for the continuous production of compounds that are utilized in food and healthcare. The high-value natural products and bioactive compounds are often challenging to synthesize chemically since they accumulate in meager quantities. The isolation and purification of bioactive compounds from plants is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and involves cumbersome extraction procedures. This demands alternative options, and the plant cell culture system offers easy downstream procedures. Retention of the metabolic cues of natural plants, scale-up facility, use as stem cells in the cosmetics industry, and metabolic engineering (especially the rebuilding of the pathways in microbes) are some of the advantages for the synthesis and accumulation of the targeted metabolites and creation of high yielding cell factories. In this article, we discuss plant cell suspension cultures for the in vitro manipulation and production of plant bioactive compounds. Further, we discuss the new advances in the application of plant cells in the cosmetics and food industry and bioprinting.Peer reviewe

Pearl Millet Mapping Population Parents: Performance and Selection Under Salt Stress Across Environments Varying in Evaporative Demand

It is vital to screen the germplasm of crop plants for salt stress tolerance so as to utilize them in breeding programs. Accordingly, in the present study, twenty diverse inbred lines, parents of mapping populations of pearl millet were chosen to determine the phenotypic contrasts for seed yield, which can open the way for developing salt tolerance QTLs. Parents were grown in two summer seasons (late and early) with VPD ≥ 2 kPa, and one rainy season with VPD < 2 kPa, during flowering and grain filling under saline (150 and 200 mM) and non-saline (0 mM) conditions. Salinity delayed flowering time by a fortnight in the summer seasons but only 5–6 days in the low VPD rainy season. Salinity decreased grain yield by 86% in late-summer and 80% in early-summer, but less than 70% in rainy season. GY penalty was higher than vegetative biomass under saline conditions especially in summer season when the evaporative demand was very high. It appears that reproduction and grain filling are sensitive to high temperature that can compound the effect of salinity and high VPD. GY of inbreds under salinity was not better in comparison with non-saline conditions. DOF and grain density (thousand grain weight) were found as important correlated traits under salinity. Also, GY was affected significantly if VPD increased during flowering time

Genome-wide identification and transcriptional profiling of small heat shock protein gene family under diverse abiotic stress conditions in Sorghum bicolor (L.)

The small heat shock proteins (sHsps/Hsp20s) are the molecular chaperones that maintain proper folding, trafficking and disaggregation of proteins under diverse abiotic stress conditions. In the present investigation, a genome-wide scan revealed the presence of a total of 47 sHsps in Sorghum bicolor (SbsHsps), distributed across 10 subfamilies, the major subfamily being P (plastid) group with 17 genes. Chromosomes 1 and 3 appear as the hot spot regions for SbsHsps, and majority of them were found acidic, hydrophilic, unstable and intron less. Interestingly, promoter analysis indicated that they are associated with both biotic and abiotic stresses, as well as plant development. Sorghum sHsps exhibited 15 paralogous and 20 orthologous duplications. Expression analysis of 15 genes selected from different subfamilies showed high transcript levels in roots and leaves implying that they are likely to participate in the developmental processes. SbsHsp genes were highly induced by diverse abiotic stresses inferring their critical role in mediating the environmental stress responses. Gene expression data revealed that SbsHsp-02 is a candidate gene expressed in all the tissues under varied stress conditions tested. Our results contribute to the understanding of the complexity of SbsHsp genes and help to analyse them further for functional validation

Drought Stress Tolerance Mechanisms in Barley and Its Relevance to Cereals

In the changing environment, water is the major limiting factor for crop productivity throughout the world, and there is every need to generate climate-resilient crops. Since drought is a complex phenomenon, we need to dissect various mechanisms at the physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels in order to generate crop plants with better drought tolerance but without any yield penalties. Accumulated literature points out that improvement at both source and sink levels are needed to elevate final yields under water deficit conditions. Here, we summarize the current status of plant adaptation mechanisms and the strategies that we need to carve for generating drought stress-tolerant crops like barley

Assessing Genetic Variability for Root Traits and Identification of Trait-Specific Germplasm in Chickpea Reference Set

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a major grain legume cultivated largely on residual soil moisture in the arid and semiarid regions of the world. Terminal drought stress is one of the major causes of yield loss, and a deep root system has been recognized as one of the most important traits for enhancing drought adaptability. To diversify the current genetic base of root traits, the present study explored the variation for root traits in the reference set of chickpea (n = 300) germplasm. Genetic variability for root traits at 35 d after sowing was assessed using a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cylinder culture system in two postrainy seasons. Largest genetic variability was observed for dry weights of shoot (broad-sense heritability [h2] = 0.69–0.74) and root (h2 = 0.52–0.70). For root-length density (h2 = 0.42–0.43) and root/total-plant dry-weight ratio (h2 = 0.32–0.54), h2 values were moderate but the variation was large, indicating scope for selection. The performance of the reference set accessions was identified for each of key traits. Accessions with the best root-length densities along with root and shoot dry weights were found to originate from the Mediterranean region and western Asia emphasizing the importance of whole collection from these regions for superior root traits. This study identified 23 new accessions for widening the parental base in further drought tolerance breeding efforts and identified superior traits in already adapted genetic backgrounds

Quantitative Genetic Analysis of Agronomic and Morphological Traits in Sorghum, Sorghum bicolor

The productivity in sorghum is low, owing to various biotic and abiotic constraints. Combining insect resistance with desirable agronomic and morphological traits is important to increase sorghum productivity. Therefore, it is important to understand the variability for various agronomic traits, their heritabilities and nature of gene action to develop appropriate strategies for crop improvement. Therefore, a full diallel set of 10 parents and their 90 crosses including reciprocals were evaluated in replicated trials during the 2013-14 rainy and postrainy seasons. The crosses between the parents with early- and late-flowering flowered early, indicating dominance of earliness for anthesis in the test material used. Association between the shoot fly resistance, morphological and agronomic traits suggested complex interactions between shoot fly resistance and morphological traits. Significance of the mean sum of squares for GCA (general combining ability) and SCA (specific combining ability) of all the studied traits suggested the importance of both additive and non-additive components in inheritance of these traits. The GCA/SCA, and the predictability ratios indicated predominance of additive gene effects for majority of the traits studied. High broad-sense and narrow-sense heritability estimates were observed for most of the morphological and agronomic traits. The significance of reciprocal combining ability effects for days to 50% flowering, plant height and 100 seed weight, suggested maternal effects for inheritance of these traits. Plant height and grain yield across seasons, days to 50% flowering, inflorescence exsertion and panicle shape in the postrainy season showed greater specific combining ability variance, indicating the predominance of non-additive type of gene action/epistatic interactions in controlling the expression of these traits. Additive gene action in the rainy season, and dominance in the postrainy season for days to 50% flowering and plant height suggested G X E interactions for these traits

Changes in timing of water uptake and phenology favours yield gain in terminal water stressed chickpea AtDREB1A transgenics

Terminal drought causes major yield loss in chickpea, so it is imperative to identify genotypes with best suited adaptive traits to secure yield in terminal drought-prone environments. Here, we evaluated chickpea (At) rd29A:: (At) DREB1A transgenic events (RD2, RD7, RD9 and RD10) and their untransformed C235 genotype for growth, water use and yield under terminal water-stress (WS) and well-watered (WW) conditions. The assessment was made across three lysimetric trials conducted in contained environments in the greenhouse (2009GH and 2010GH) and the field (2010F). Results from the greenhouse trials showed genotypic variation for harvest index (HI), yield, temporal pattern of flowering and seed filling, temporal pattern of water uptake across crop cycle, and transpiration efficiency (TE) under terminal WS conditions. The mechanisms underlying the yield gain in the WS transgenic events under 2009GH trial was related to conserving water for the reproductive stage in RD7, and setting seeds early in RD10. Water conservation also led to a lower percentage of flower and pod abortion in both RD7 and RD10. Similarly, in the 2010GH trial, reduced water extraction during vegetative stage in events RD2, RD7 and RD9 was critical for better seed filling in the pods produced from late flowers in RD2, and reduced percentage of flower and pod abortion in RD2 and RD9. However, in the 2010F trial, the increased seed yield and HI in RD9 compared with C235 came along only with small changes in water uptake and podding pattern, probably not causal. Events RD2 (2010GH), RD7 (2010GH) and RD10 (2009GH) with higher seed yield also had higher TE than C235. The results suggest that DREB1A, a transcription factor involved in the regulation of several genes of abiotic stress response cascade, influenced the pattern of water uptake and flowering across the crop cycle, leading to reduction in the percentage of flower and pod abortion in the glasshouse trials