In vitro selection and identification of drought-tolerant mutants in sweet potato.

Abstract

Abiotic stresses have become an integral part of crop production. One or other persist either in soil or in atmosphere. With the ultimate goal to raise the crop plants with better suitability towards rapidly changing environmental inputs, intense efforts are needed employing physiological, biochemical and molecular tools to improve tolerance ability under abiotic stresses. Attempts have been taken by plant breeders to develop tolerant varieties of different crops for specific abiotic stress. Appreciable improvement also has been done by the molecular biologists regarding to perturbations in gene expression and protein during stress. Employing transgenic technology, functional validation of various target genes involve in diverse processes, such as signaling, transcription, ion homeostasis, antioxidant defense etc. for enhanced abiotic stress tolerance has been attempted in various model system and some of them hav