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Updated: Oct 12, 2025
06:35
Semi-High Throughput Screening for Potential Drought-tolerance in Lettuce Lactuca sativa Germplasm Collections
Published on: April 17, 2015
9.2K
Crops for dry environments.
Jill M Farrant1, Henk Hilhorst2
1Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Current Opinion in Biotechnology
|November 22, 2021
Summary
Climate change requires resilient crops. Scientists explore activating dormant genetic pathways for plant desiccation tolerance, enabling crops to survive extreme drought by mimicking seed survival mechanisms.
Area of Science:
- Plant Science
- Agricultural Science
- Climate Change Adaptation
Background:
- Climate change intensifies the need for crops with enhanced stress resilience.
- Current crop improvement strategies often focus on water retention rather than true drought tolerance.
- Certain Angiosperms exhibit remarkable desiccation tolerance, surviving extreme water loss.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore novel strategies for enhancing crop stress resilience against drought.
- To investigate the potential of vegetative desiccation tolerance as a drought adaptation mechanism.
- To identify pathways for activating dormant desiccation tolerance genes in crop plants.
Main Methods:
- Reviewing existing literature on desiccation tolerance in seeds and plants.
- Analyzing genomic information related to desiccation tolerance.
- Investigating molecular mechanisms underlying plant survival during extreme dehydration.
Main Results:
- Identified desiccation tolerance as a viable, yet underutilized, trait for crop improvement.
- Highlighted the presence of inactive desiccation tolerance genes in vegetative plant tissues.
- Proposed potential routes for activating these genes to confer drought tolerance.
Conclusions:
- Activating vegetative desiccation tolerance offers a promising avenue for developing climate-resilient crops.
- Harnessing the genetic basis of seed desiccation tolerance can be applied to crop improvement.
- Further research into 'flipping the switch' for desiccation tolerance is crucial for food security.
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