Application of microbial biotechnology in improving salt stress and crop productivity

Abstract

Soil salinity is the principal detrimental abiotic stress that globally impedes crop yield. It affects a wide range of biochemical, morphological, physiological, and molecular changes and is responsible for inducing ion toxicity, hormonal disturbance, water uptake, homeostasis disturbance, and oxidative stress. To evade this abiotic stress, many genes are identified, and their mechanisms have been elucidated in Arabidopsis thaliana through the transgenic approaches and also in other plants like Prunus cerasifera, Brassica juncea, Ipomoea batatas, tobacco, etc. Modern tools revolutionized microbial biotechnology by providing a better choice for plant scientists to select or incorporate genes of interest into preferred species or cultivars. Transgenics may regulate the various metabolic pathways including biosynthesis of chlorophyll and osmolyte, ion exchange homeostasis, antioxidant defense mechanism, and additional frontier defense corridors against salinity stress. Exclusively using such gene manipulations, many genetically modified crop varieties like canola, cotton, maize, rice, and soybean are being developed. Many techniques have been introduced for establishing possible sustainability against soil salinity. Apart from this, it also incorporates some receptor genes in crop plants that may sense or escape any changes in soil salinity under environmental condition. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to enlighten the basic importance and modern application of microbial biotechnology to understand the behavior of transgenic crop plants in saline soil. The study also elaborates understanding of molecular machinery for healthy crop production.