Role of metabolome in enhancing crop resilience to abiotic stress in horticultural crops-A review

Abstract

Abiotic stresses, including drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, and nutrient deficiencies, pose significant challenges to global agriculture, threatening food security and crop productivity. The metabolome, encompassing the complete set of metabolites within an organism, plays a pivotal role in plant responses to such stresses. Metabolomics, the large-scale study of metabolites, provides insights into the biochemical pathways and mechanisms underlying stress tolerance. Plants deploy complex metabolic reprogramming to mitigate stress effects, involving osmoprotectants, antioxidants, phytohormones, and secondary metabolites. For instance, compounds like proline, glycine betaine, and sugars act as osmolytes to maintain cellular homeostasis, while antioxidants such as ascorbate and glutathione mitigate oxidative damage. Stress-responsive phytohormones like abscisic acid (ABA) regulate stomatal closure and activate downstream signaling pathways. Furthermore, secondary metabolites, including flavonoids and alkaloids, contribute to stress resistance by modulating growth and defense. Advancements in metabolomics technologies, such as mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance, enable comprehensive profiling of stress-induced metabolites, offering opportunities to identify key biomarkers and pathways. These insights facilitate targeted breeding and biotechnological interventions to develop stress-resilient crops. Integrating metabolomics with genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics can provide a holistic understanding of stress tolerance mechanisms, paving the way for sustainable agricultural practices. This study underscores the critical role of the metabolome in enhancing crop resilience to abiotic stress and highlights the potential of metabolomics in addressing global agricultural challenges through precision breeding and metabolic engineering.