Genomics for drought resistance – getting down to earth

Blum, A. (2014) Genomics for drought resistance – getting down to earth. Functional Plant Biology. pp. 1-8.

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Abstract

A meta-analysis of 520 reports published during the last 20 years on transgenic and mutant plants generated towards drought resistance revealed a total of at least 487 tested transgenic plants involving at least 100 genes claimed to be functional towards drought resistance. During this period, the rate of reported new experimental transgenic model or crop plants for drought resistance has been increasing exponentially. Despite these numbers, qualified sources of information indicate a very limited impact on global dryland agriculture, whereas the genetically modified (GM) market hardly recognises drought-resistant GM cultivars. This paper discusses possible reasons for the limited impact of genomics on the delivery of drought-resistant cultivars, which are beyond issues of regulation, propriety or commercialisation. These reasons are mainly tied to scientific and methodological problems in drought stress gene expression work and the functional genomics protocols used to identify drought resistance. Insufficient phenotyping of experimental transgenic plants for drought resistance often does not allow true conclusions about the real function of the discovered genes towards drought resistance. The discussion is concluded by proposing an outline of a minimal set of tests that might help us resolve the real function of discovered genes, thus bringing the research results down to earth.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: genetic modification, mutants, transgenic plants, water stress.
Author Affiliation: Plantstress (www.plantstress.com), PO Box 16246, Tel Aviv, Israel. Email: ablum@plantstress.com
Subjects: Crop Improvement > Genetics/Genomics
Divisions: General
Depositing User: Mr Siva Shankar
Date Deposited: 14 Apr 2014 10:42
Last Modified: 14 Apr 2014 10:42
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/FP14018
URI: http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/13070

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