Omics In Seed Development Challenges And Opportunities For Improving Of Seed Quality And Yield In Model And Crop Plants

Omics in Seed Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Improving of Seed Quality and Yield in Model and Crop Plants

Seed development represents an important phase of the life cycle in sexually reproducing plant species. A seed is a complex organ system of three components, the embryo that contributes to germline continuity, endosperm for nourishment, and the seed coat for protection. The developmental programs and the associated events that culminate in the production of a mature seed are highly complex and require precisely coordinated integration of the genetic, molecular, biochemical, metabolic, and physiological pathways and their interactions with environmental cues. Research advances in seed development, using model and crop species such as Arabidopsis, rice, maize, wheat, and Brassica species, have uncovered several key genes and pathways that regulate the cell and tissue specification, differentiation, and growth programs. The key findings from these studies are helping to develop a framework for advancing the knowledge and understanding of the process and the underpinning molecular mechanisms of an embryo, endosperm, and seed coat development. However, knowledge gaps still exist in understanding the regulating networks and metabolic programs involved in defining several important seed traits associated with seed quality and yield, especially in crop plants. Continued rapid advances in omics technologies have contributed to the development of several critical tools for performing genome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome studies and their applications in seed development. Bioinformatics and computational tools are also playing important contributions in the large-scale genome-wide systems-level analysis, modeling, and predictions to identify and characterize the underpinning mechanisms that support seed formation. A holistic understanding of the complexities and interactions that drive seed development is becoming increasingly possible with the application of “omics” tools to decipher gene, protein, and metabolite networks. In the proposed Research Topic, we highlight current advances in genomics, proteomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, and phenomics studies of seed development in both model and crop species. We aim to further elucidate how these key genetic regulators and pathway genes act together to control cell division, patterning, differentiation, and storage reserve accumulation during seed development; how these critical processes coordinate to define the seed as a whole; and how the genetic and regulatory networks function to generate tremendous natural diversity in the size, number and compositional aspects of plant seeds.

Seed Development: OMICS Technologies toward Improvement of Seed Quality and Crop Yield

The book is about the seed development in the model and crop plants. Seed development is a key step of the plant life cycle that determines the nutrient value of seeds – the life for human civilization, growth, and development. The nutrient value of seeds is mainly due to storage reserve products such as carbohydrates, lipids (triacylglycerols), and proteins. The book primarily focuses on application of the 21st century high-throughput technologies transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and systems biology in near complete understanding of the various processes involved in seed development in different crop plants. The book reveals how such technologies have revolutionized our understanding of the multilayer processes and regulations involved therein by generating large-scale datasets. Accumulated datasets provide basic knowledge to develop integrated strategies to eventually improve the nutritional value of plant seed and crop yield, a critical goal in food security issues aroundthe globe.

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