Aug 2026· International Journal of Plant Biology· Vol 17, pp. 73· 0 citations· 263 references
TL;DR
This review critically synthesizes recent advances in photosynthesis-related traits, phenomics, HTP technologies, and their integration with genomics and AI-assisted breeding, highlighting current challenges, knowledge gaps, and future opportunities for developing climate-resilient wheat and rice cultivars and promoting sustainable crop production.
Abstract
Photosynthesis is the fundamental biological process underlying plant growth, crop productivity, and global food security. However, its efficiency is highly vulnerable to abiotic stresses, which disrupt chlorophyll biosynthesis, electron transport, carbon assimilation, stomatal regulation, and photoprotective mechanisms, ultimately reducing crop yield. Improving photosynthetic resilience under adverse environments has therefore become a major objective of modern crop improvement. Recent advances in phenomics and high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) have transformed the evaluation of photosynthesis-related traits by enabling rapid, non-destructive, and large-scale assessment across diverse environments, while facilitating quantitative characterization of structural, physiological, biochemical, and thermal responses to abiotic stress. Technologies including chlorophyll fluorescence, gas-exchange analysis, thermal imaging, hyperspectral imaging, LiDAR, and UAV-based sensing provide comprehensive insights into plant physiological responses and stress adaptation. Integration of these phenomic approaches with genomic information and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven analytical frameworks has strengthened genomic and phenomic prediction, enabling more accurate identification of candidate genes, selection of superior genotypes, and accelerated genetic gain. This review critically synthesizes recent advances in photosynthesis-related traits, phenomics, HTP technologies, and their integration with genomics and AI-assisted breeding, highlighting current challenges, knowledge gaps, and future opportunities for developing climate-resilient wheat and rice cultivars and promoting sustainable crop production.
Phenotyping stomatal traits and their developmental plasticity is time-consuming but holds potential to improve water use efficiency and photosynthesis for designing stress-tolerant crops under climate change. Here, we develop a robust, high-throughput pipeline for phenotyping 14 stomatal traits in winter wheat related to size, variation, maximum conductance, and spatial patterning. We (1) analyze over 25,000 images from 60 wheat cultivars grown in growth chamber, greenhouse, and field conditions; (2) investigate the impact of light, temperature, and reduced water and nitrogen supply on stomatal traits and their developmental plasticity across adaxial and abaxial surfaces; and (3) evaluate genetic diversity and breeding progress of stomatal traits. Stomatal traits were highly broad-sense heritable, were largely plastic in response to environmental conditions, and showed genotype-specific responses. Stomatal traits of third leaves under controlled environments with stable light and temperature conditions reliably captured the genetic variance of flag leaves under field conditions. Our data suggests that the upper leaf surface contributed more to transpiration and cooling through consistently higher stomatal density, area, and maximum conductance, while the lower surface facilitated CO₂ diffusion via systematic proper patterning and spacing. Breeding maintains the genetic diversity of stomatal traits, and our pipeline facilitates breeders to target them to enhance water use efficiency in high-yielding modern cultivars.
Mahmoud Mabrouk, Nicholas J. Russell, Emilio Villar Alegria et al.· bioRxiv· 0 citations
Abiotic factors, such as drought, salt, severe temperatures, and heavy metal toxicity, persistently threaten global agricultural production, contributing to an estimated 40–70% of yield losses in primary food crops globally. Drought diminishes yields by as much as 50% in rice, 42% in soybean, 40% in maize, 21% in wheat, and 27–40% in chickpea, while soil salinity, impacting almost 20% of irrigated agricultural area, induces similar productivity declines. In a similar vein, temperature extremes and heavy metal toxicity worsen oxidative stress, hinder nutrient uptake, and upset cellular homeostasis, all of which impede plant growth and development. Genomics and proteomics profiling have enabled the systematic identification and functional characterization of stress-responsive genes (e.g., OsPYL9, AtWRKY8) and regulatory proteins, including heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) and glutathione transferase, which mediate stress perception and downstream adaptive signaling cascades. CRISPR-based genome editing provides a precise and promising approach for developing climate-resilient crops by targeting key gene (cytokinins oxidase gene (OsCKX2)) involved in abiotic stress tolerance, offering potential for sustainable crop improvement under changing environmental conditions.This study assesses the state of CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing for stress tolerance, highlights the molecular and regulatory underpinnings of abiotic variables in agricultural plants. Additionally, it is expected that advancements in genome editing technologies (such as CRISPR-Cas9) and high-resolution proteomic methods would provide new options for precision agricultural trait alteration, enhancing breeding programs and aiding global efforts to assure food security. Plant survival is impacted by cellular alterations brought on by abiotic stress. Proteomics and genomics are dynamic fields of study that examine genes and proteins involved in stress tolerance. Identification of genes involved in combating abiotic stress and the understanding of their functions aid scientists in developing varieties that are resistant to various types of stress.
R. Omer, Sanchi Singh, Jyoti Mathur· Discover Plants· 0 citations
Drought constitutes one of the most pervasive abiotic constraints limiting global crop productivity, with its frequency and intensity projected to increase substantially under ongoing climate change. This narrative review synthesises contemporary evidence on the genetic, physiological, and agronomic dimensions of drought resilience in major food crops, drawing on peer-reviewed literature published primarily between 2000 and 2026. Physiologically, drought impairs stomatal conductance, suppresses photosynthetic carbon assimilation, disturbs osmotic equilibrium, and restricts root-mediated water acquisition, with reproductive stages being disproportionately vulnerable. At the genetic level, the deployment of quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, transcription-factor engineering, CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, and the overexpression of stress-responsive functional genes has opened novel avenues for enhancing tolerance without compromising yield potential. Breeding programmes have increasingly integrated marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection to accelerate genetic gain, whilst high-throughput phenotyping platforms now enable rapid assessment of drought-adaptive traits at a population scale. Agronomic strategies, including deficit irrigation, conservation tillage, intercropping, and application of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), provide complementary levers for sustaining productivity under water-limited conditions. Emerging integrative approaches that combine multi-omics, digital precision agriculture, and policy-enabled climate-smart frameworks are highlighted as critical pathways for translating laboratory and field insights into scalable solutions. The review identifies persistent knowledge gaps—including the limited translation of genomic advances to smallholder contexts and the underexplored potential of microbiome engineering—and calls for a convergence of disciplinary expertise, equitable technology transfer, and coherent policy support to achieve drought-resilient food systems globally.
B. Santhosh, V. Sanjivkumar, H. B. Gowda et al.· Journal of Advances in Biolo...· 0 citations
Plant bioinformatics has emerged as a cornerstone of modern plant science by enabling the large-scale analysis and interpretation of genomic and post-genomic data for crop improvement. The rapid advancement of high-throughput sequencing technologies, coupled with powerful computational tools, has transformed traditional breeding approaches into data-driven strategies. Bioinformatics facilitates the identification of genes, quantitative trait loci (QTLs), regulatory networks, and molecular markers associated with agronomically important traits, particularly stress tolerance. Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, heat, and cold, as well as biotic stresses caused by pathogens and pests, significantly limit crop productivity worldwide. Integrating bioinformatics with genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and phenomics has enabled a deeper understanding of plant stress responses and accelerated the development of resilient crop varieties. This review comprehensively discusses the applications of plant bioinformatics in crop improvement and stress tolerance, highlighting major computational approaches, databases, tools, and emerging trends. The challenges and prospects of bioinformatics-driven plant breeding are also critically examined.
Jagannath University Journal of Science, Volume 12, Number 1, Jun. 2025, pp. 177−187
Anika Tabassum· Jagannath University Journal...· 0 citations
P phenotypic, physiological, and transcriptomic analyses were integrated to elucidate the drought adaptation mechanisms of a gamma-ray-induced mutant wheat line, PL6, alongside its wild-type parent, PL1, demonstrating an effective analytical framework for selection of high-confidence transcripts.
M. Hong, Ryu Jeong Kim, So Jin Park et al.· Agriculture· 0 citations
Abiotic stress tolerance has been significantly weakened in modern crops during the domestication process. Regaining tolerance has become a critical task in light of current climate trends and their impact on global food security. Abiotic stress tolerance is an extremely complex trait and is conferred at various levels of plant functional organization and developmental stages, with regulatory mechanisms operating across multiple scales, from individual cells to tissues and the entire plant. The emergence of advanced molecular tools such as single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial omics technologies has revolutionized the field, advancing our understanding of plant responses to hostile environments. However, the implementation of this knowledge in crop breeding programmes is handicapped by the lack of appropriate phenotyping platforms. Here, we argue that current phenotyping methods may be excellent tools for functional validation of previously discovered traits but have limited predictive value in stress biology. We also propose that bridging the mismatch between omics technologies and phenotyping is the only way to account for cell-specific operation of key genes conferring stress tolerance and implementing them in breeding programmes. Some practical examples using cell-based phenotyping tools such as fluorescence dyes or electrophysiological methods are given, and current limitations and prospects of cell-based phenotyping are discussed.
Sergey Shabala, Ping Yun, Zhong-Hua Chen et al.· New Phytologist· 0 citations
