Fab Advances in Fabaceae for Abiotic Stress Resilience: From ‘Omics’ to Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Legumes are a better source of proteins and are richer in diverse micronutrients over the nutritional profile of widely consumed cereals. However, when exposed to a diverse range of abiotic stresses, their overall productivity and quality are hugely impacted. Our limited understanding of genetic determinants and novel variants associated with the abiotic stress response in food legume crops restricts its amelioration. Therefore, it is imperative to understand different molecular approaches in food legume crops that can be utilized in crop improvement programs to minimize the economic loss. ‘Omics’-based molecular breeding provides better opportunities over conventional breeding for diversifying the natural germplasm together with improving yield and quality parameters. Due to molecular advancements, the technique is now equipped with novel ‘omics’ approaches such as ionomics, epigenomics, fluxomics, RNomics, glycomics, glycoproteomics, phosphoproteomics, lipidomics, regulomics, and secretomics. Pan-omics—which utilizes the molecular bases of the stress response to identify genes (genomics), mRNAs (transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics), and biomolecules (metabolomics) associated with stress regulation—has been widely used for abiotic stress amelioration in food legume crops. Integration of pan-omics with novel omics approaches will fast-track legume breeding programs. Moreover, artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms can be utilized for simulating crop yield under changing environments, which can help in predicting the genetic gain beforehand. Application of machine learning (ML) in quantitative trait loci (QTL) mining will further help in determining the genetic determinants of abiotic stress tolerance in pulses.

Metabolome Profiling: A Breeding Prediction Tool for Legume Performance under Biotic Stress Conditions

“…Contemporary biotechnology tools including next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms have aided many breeding programmes with provision of genetic data that traditional breeding techniques cannot fully reveal [20]. Biotechnological "omics" approaches have contributed greatly to breeding aimed at the improvement of plant stress tolerance by providing insight into genetic diversity, genotype variations, genetic maps and other useful information pertaining to the genetics of plant populations [21,22].…”

“…When this process occurs, the plant activates signal transduction pathways that set off the assembly of proteins and metabolomic compounds that aid in reaching a new homeostasis [28,29]. Furthermore, metabolome analysis provides information on the metabolomic pathways that are responsible for complex processes that occur when a plant is exposed to stress conditions [20].…”

Recent advancement in OMICS approaches to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in legumes

“…Ionomics involves a thorough understanding of the transcriptional regulation concerned with homeostasis to assess the abiotic-stress-responsive ion transporters, genetic mutations compounds, and other constituents. Combining ionomics with other pan-omics tools, such as metabolomics and proteomics, will expand the possibilities for evaluating the impacts of abiotic stresses in legumes and their implementations helps in increasing legume productivity (Singh et al, 2021 ).…”

“…SSR markers have been used in cluster bean, pigeon pea, cowpea, and winged bean, whereas inter-species SSRs have been employed in lablab for the assessment of diversity and other purposes. SSRs markers have also been used in many dolichos bean studies for the assessment of genetic diversity (Keerthi et al, 2018 ; Singh et al, 2021 ). SNPs are desired markers due to their pervasive nature and lavishness in the genetic material.…”

Response of plants of the fabaceae family caused by different types of abiotic stress

“…Legumes belonging to the Fabaceae family are consumed worldwide, they are rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals and add volume to the diet; Due to its nutritional profile, its daily intake can help reduce micronutrient deficiencies among people in developing countries. Legumes have a prospective role in conservative agriculture due to their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen (N), which improves soil fertility (Singh et al, 2021).…”