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Root-targeted biotechnology to mediate hormonal signalling and improve crop stress tolerance

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Abstract

Since plant root systems capture both water and nutrients essential for the formation of crop yield, there has been renewed biotechnological focus on root system improvement. Although water and nutrient uptake can be facilitated by membrane proteins known as aquaporins and nutrient transporters, respectively, there is a little evidence that root-localised overexpression of these proteins improves plant growth or stress tolerance. Recent work suggests that the major classes of phytohormones are involved not only in regulating aquaporin and nutrient transporter expression and activity, but also in sculpting root system architecture. Root-specific expression of plant and bacterial phytohormone-related genes, using either root-specific or root-inducible promoters or grafting non-transformed plants onto constitutive hormone producing rootstocks, has examined the role of root hormone production in mediating crop stress tolerance. Root-specific traits such as root system architecture, sensing of edaphic stress and root-to-shoot communication can be exploited to improve resource (water and nutrients) capture and plant development under resource-limited conditions. Thus, root system engineering provides new opportunities to maintain sustainable crop production under changing environmental conditions.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank their national organisations for supporting research on source–sink relations and root-to-shoot signalling: fonds de la Recherche Scientifique FRS-FNRS (project FRFC-2456308) Belgium; Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech of the University of Liège for Rhizovol project support; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (ACC signalling), UK; the Fundación Séneca de la Región de Murcia (project 08712/PI/08) and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (project AGL2008–01733/AGR), Spain. MEG is Chargé de recherches of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique FRS-F.N.R.S. (Belgium). IH thanks the Université catholique de Louvain for the award of post-doctoral fellowship. MEG thanks the CSIC for the grant of a JAEDOC.

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Author notes

  1. Alfonso Albacete

    Present address: Institute of Plant Sciences, Karl-Franzens-University of Graz, 8010, Graz, Austria

  2. Cristina Martinez-Andujar

    Present address: Department of Horticulture-Seed Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Groupe de Recherche en Physiologie végétale (GRPV), Earth and Life Institute (ELI-A), Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Michel Edmond Ghanem, Imène Hichri & Stanley Lutts

  2. CEBAS-CSIC, Campus de Espinardo, 30100, Espinardo, Murcia, Spain

    Michel Edmond Ghanem, Alfonso Albacete, Cristina Martinez-Andujar & Francisco Pérez-Alfocea

  3. Molecular Plant Pathology Laboratory, USDA, ARS, Beltsville, MD, 20705, USA

    Ann C. Smigocki

  4. Plant Biology Unit, University of Liège Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, Gembloux, Belgium

    Marie-Laure Fauconnier

  5. Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin, UMR 1318 INRA-AgroParisTech, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Versailles, France

    Eugene Diatloff

  6. The Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Ian C. Dodd

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  1. Michel Edmond Ghanem
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Correspondence to Michel Edmond Ghanem.

Additional information

Communicated by R. Reski.

M. E. Ghanem and I. Hichri contributed equally to this work.

A contribution to the Special Issue: Plant Biotechnology in Support of the Millennium Development Goals.

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Ghanem, M.E., Hichri, I., Smigocki, A.C. et al. Root-targeted biotechnology to mediate hormonal signalling and improve crop stress tolerance. Plant Cell Rep 30, 807–823 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-011-1005-2

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