Molecular Breeding of Forage Abiotic Stress Tolerance

Forages are the backbone of sustainable agriculture. They include a wide variety of plant species, from grasses such as tall fescue and dogbane to herbaceous legumes such as alfalfa and white clover. The growth and productivity of forage grasses are limited by abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, temperature extremes, high photon irradiance, and inorganic solute levels. Multiple stresses can coexist, with one stress reducing the plant's ability to resist a second stress. Drought is considered to be the most common abiotic stress productivity that limits crop growth. Therefore, traits associated with resistance to abiotic stresses are the main targets for the biotechnological improvement of forage crops. To date, traditional approaches to improving forage breeding for abiotic stress tolerance have been successful. Still, they are limited by the need for the desired traits of the target species, genetic diversity, lack of affinity, and barriers to gene transfer due to species differences.

Solutions

Given the complexity of forage species and the associated difficulties encountered in traditional breeding approaches, our team of experts is dedicated to analyzing molecular and physiological information on abiotic stress tolerance processes in grasses to develop the potential of molecular breeding for improving abiotic stress tolerance in forage grasses. We build cutting-edge genetic engineering platforms to overcome sexual incompatibility and species barriers between organisms, helping breeders and molecular biologists introduce only interest genes and make more selective modifications.

We combine genetic technologies that can be combined with traditional breeding strategies to localize, sequence, clone, and comparatively target stress-responsive genes, allowing for trait-specific marker-assisted selection and overall multiple stress tolerance enhancement. Lifeasibe offers customized solutions for the molecular breeding of forage grasses for abiotic stress resistance.

• Molecular Breeding of Forage for Salt Tolerance
• Molecular Breeding of Forage for Drought Tolerance
• Molecular Breeding of Forage for Heavy Metal Tolerance

Molecular Breeding Strategies for Abiotic Stress Resistance in Forage

We provide transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolic analyses to identify several genes induced by abiotic stresses in forage grasses and their associated signaling pathways and regulatory pathways. Here, Lifeasible offers the following specialized strategies to develop transgenic forage plants with higher tolerance to abiotic stresses.

❖ Transgenic Expression Enhances Antioxidant Metabolism

Stress-induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is an essential aspect of the plant environmental stress response. We develop forage varieties against abiotic stress by increasing the expression of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) transgenes in forage grasses.

❖ Transgenic Expression of Ion Transporter Proteins

We use genetic engineering to increase the transgenic expression of ion transporter proteins in forage grasses to allow for a greater accumulation of Na⁺, K⁺, and Ca²⁺.

❖ Genetic Engineering of Osmoprotectants

Salinity causes relatively high solute concentrations in the soil resulting in an initial water deficit. We use transgenic methods to control the synthesis of osmolytes and compatible solutes and to modify forage fodder plants to enhance the accumulation of various compatible solutes to make them tolerant to high salinity, cold, and drought.

❖ Genetic Engineering of Signaling and Regulatory Elements for Manipulation

We use microarray and proteomics technologies to analyze the expression of genes that promote stress tolerance and regulation through various signaling pathways in forage grasses under various adverse environmental conditions. In addition, we can encode genes involved in stress responses into individual genes of stress-inducible transcription factors to enhance the tolerance of forage grasses to multiple stresses such as drought, salinity, and freezing.

Our strategies for engineering abiotic stress tolerance in forage grasses rely on gene expression of enzymes involved in pathways leading to the synthesis of functional and structural metabolites, proteins conferring stress tolerance or proteins in signaling and regulatory pathways. Many gene structures have been used to engineer forage crops to provide stress tolerance. If you have any special requirements for our solutions, please feel free to contact us.