OSMOLYTE ACCUMULATION IN CROP PLANTS TO IMPART DROUGHT STRESS TOLERANCE

C. Appunu1, G. S. Suresha2, P.T. Prathima1, V. Sreenivasa1, K. Lakshmi1

1

Division of Crop Improvement, 2Division of Crop Production, Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore

Environmental stresses represent the most limiting factors for agriculture production in India. A number of abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity and extreme temperatures exert considerable yield losses in crop productivity. Among the various yield limiting stresses, major constraint has been due to drought. Water requirement of the important agriculture crops varied. Varieties cultivars tolerant to drought are increasingly important to India because the demand for water has already increased manifold over the years due to urbanization, agriculture expansion, increasing population, rapid industrialization and economic development. Under these circumstances, development of drought tolerant varieties or varieties with improved water use efficiency through conventional and transgenic approaches would help to sustain the agricultural production. In complementary with conventional breeding, genetic engineering approaches offers a wider scope to introduce a novel pathway from unrelated sources to improve drought tolerance in agriculturally important crops. Many prokaryotes (e.g. bacteria) and certain eukaryotes (e.g. marine algae) have evolved a number of adaptations to drought stresses. These adaptations are at genetic, metabolic and structural levels. The metabolic traits, especially pathways with few enzymes are more amenable to genetic manipulations. At metabolic level, accumulation of certain organic solutes also known as osmolytes is a common adaptation mechanism found in diverse taxa. These compounds are of three types, i. betaines (fully N-methylated aminoacid derivatives) and related compounds such as dimethyl sulfonio- propionate (DMSP) and choline-O-sulfate; ii. certain aminoacids like proline and ectoine, and iii. Polyols (e.g. mannitol, D-ononitol and pinitol) and nonreducing sugars such as trehalose, but not all of these osmolytes occur in all crop plants. Although

osmolyte compounds confer stress protection in bacteria, marine algae and plants, their synthetic pathways often differ in terms of enzymes and steps. Different osmolytes differ in osmotic adjustment mechanisms. These solutes protect proteins and membranes against damage by high concentrations of inorganic ions. Some osmolytes protect the metabolic machinery against oxidative damage. The important feature of osmoltes is that their beneficial effects are generally not species-specific, so that alien osmolytes can be engineered into plants and protect their new host. Manipulation of osmolyte synthesis pathways through transgenic technique in model crops (Arabidopsis thaliana, Medicago truncatula and tobacco) and many cultivated crops (sorghum, maize, rice, wheat etc.) proved to be advantages to improve stress tolerance. This metabolic engineering that lead to over accumulation of osmolytes in other crops offers an avenue to improve not only drought tolerance but also other abiotic stresses tolerance and thus increase the agricultural production and productivity under stress environments.