Crop improvement through microbial biotechnology: A cross talk

Abstract

Salt is a basic necessity of all living beings; however, a paradoxical increase in salt concentration has a detrimental effect on almost all life forms. Increasing cellular salinity induces bimolecular deformations that result in growth inhibition and cell death in both plants and animals. Despite the detrimental effects of salinity, microorganisms evolved mechanisms to successfully survive in extreme salt stress environments like salt brines, saline lakes, sea, effluent treatment plants, saline soils, etc. Microbes were identified to harbor various gene/gene clusters connected to salt stress tolerance, some of which were employed to develop salt stress tolerant/osmotolerant transgenic crops. The goal of this chapter is to summarize the soil salinity, mechanisms of microbial salt stress tolerance, and biotechnological applications of the salt stress tolerance for crop improvement.