Integrating stay-green and PIN-FORMED genes: PIN-FORMED genes as potential targets for designing climate-resilient cereal ideotypes

Abstract

Plant architecture modification (e.g. short-stature crops) is one of the key outcomes of modern crop breeding for high-yielding crop varieties. In cereals, delayed senescence, or stay-green, is an important trait which enable post-anthesis drought stress adaptation. Stay-green crops can prolong photosynthetic capacity during grain filling period under post-anthesis drought stress, which is essential to ensure grain yield is not impacted under drought stress conditions. Although various stay-green quantitative trait loci (QTLs) have been identified in cereals, the underlying molecular mechanisms regulating stay-green remain elusive. Recent advances in various gene-editing technologies have provided avenues to fast-track crop improvement, such as the breeding of climate resilient crops in the face of climate change. We present in this viewpoint the focus on using sorghum as the model cereal crop, to study PIN-FORMED (PIN) auxin efflux carriers as means to modulate plant architecture, and the potential to employ it as an adaptive strategy to address the environmental challenges pose by climate uncertainties.