Genomic Designing for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Foxtail Millet (Setaria Italica L.)

Global food insecurity has become one of the significant issues in recent years. The research community has begun to rely on nutritionally rich millets to resolve the issue since they are considered hardy crops and have a higher potential to cope with biotic and abiotic stresses. Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) has gained popularity as a model crop due to its small diploid genome, short life-cycle, in-breeding nature, and resilience to various climatic conditions. Domestication of foxtail millet took place about 8,000 years ago. It is known as the oldest cultivated crop in the world. Because of its climate resilience feature, foxtail millet is considered tolerant to most of the biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the cultivated foxtail millet does encounter several pathogens in the natural conditions, fungi and virus in particular, which causes significant yield losses in foxtail millet production worldwide. With the availability of genome sequence information, research in foxtail millet has accelerated, as many genes responsible for better agronomic traits have been identified. In this regard, genes and molecular pathways underlying abiotic stress response have been studied extensively in foxtail millet. However, the investigation of biotic stress response in foxtail millet is still at an early stage. Given this, the chapter briefs the patho-stresses known to affect foxtail millet yield and genes identified from the crops to understand the biotic stress-induced response. Further, the chapter highlights the use of genome editing tools like TALENs, ZFNs, CRISPR/Cas9, etc., that could be used to enhance the agronomic traits of the crop.