Understanding abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms in non-food grass species through omics approaches

Abstract

Grasses represent a diverse set of plant species including the most important cereal food crops and non-food crops such as turf, ornamental, and forage grasses. Climate change and associated abiotic stresses, especially drought, salinity, and heat stress, pose serious threats to plant health. Identification of tolerant lines followed by their successful utilization in crop improvement programs is the most sustainable way to mitigate abiotic stress. A clear understanding of stress tolerance mechanisms both at physiological and molecular levels promotes efficient utilization of germplasm for the development of improved cultivars. Forage and ornamental grasses have multifaceted importance, contributing to both ecosystems and economies. Although significant progress has been made to understand and improve the stress tolerance of traditional cereal crops, research efforts on important non-food grass species are still lacking and demands further research attention. The recent advances in multi-omics platforms enabled more in-depth dissections of the biochemical and molecular alterations associated with those pathways under abiotic stresses at different levels. While no single omics approach can comprehensively address stress tolerance questions, a combination of multiple omics techniques can be highly useful to fill gaps and facilitate crop improvement of such underutilized grass species. In this review, we summarized current omics (majorly focusing transcriptomic, proteomics, and metabolomics) related reports on drought, salinity, and heat stress in turfgrasses and other perennial grasses, and how that information can be utilized for the development of stress resilient grass varieties.

Keywords

• Drought stress
• Salinity stress
• Heat stress
• Transcriptomics
• Metabolomics
• Proteomics