Field Crop 2025, Vol.8, No.1, 20-31 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/fc 23 biological clocks and stress resistance mechanisms. The most practical thing is that regardless of drought or flooding, the yield is much higher than that of ordinary rice (Jiang et al., 2023). This is like installing an intelligent regulator for rice, which automatically activates drought resistance mode during drought and maintains high yield at other times. It seems that the key to solving the problem of food security lies in these smart genes that can "assess the situation". Figure 1 Oryza sativa Senescence-associated protein is involved in the expression levels of several critical stress-related transcription factors under drought conditions (Adopted from Park et al., 2022) Image caption: Under normal conditions OsABI5, OsRAB16A, OsLEA3, OsLIP9, OsCATA, OsDREB2A, OsNAC5, and OsNAC6 expression levels were the same. However, overexpression of OsSAP under drought conditions improved the expression levels of the evaluated stress-related transcription factors. Bars represent mean ± SE. Means denoted by the same letter are not significantly different (p < 0.05) as evaluated by Duncan’s multiple range test. Different letters on columns represent significant (p < 0.05) difference between rice lines based on Duncan’s test (Adopted from Park et al., 2022) 3.2 Research on salinity and heat tolerance Planting rice in saline-alkali land? This was something that was unthinkable before. But now scientists have used CRISPR technology to tinker with the OsRR22 gene, and the new varieties they have cultivated can withstand high-salt environments at the seedling stage (Zhang et al., 2019). The best part is that these "salt-resistant experts" are no different from ordinary rice in other aspects-they grow as tall as they should and produce as much rice as they should. This shows that we can give rice the ability to resist salt without sacrificing yield. You know, there are nearly 1 billion hectares of saline-alkali land in the world. If all of them can be planted with this improved rice, how many people will it feed! But then again, these varieties are still in the laboratory stage. If they are really to be promoted on a large scale, they still have to go through many trials and tribulations. Global warming is getting worse, and high temperatures can easily "cook" rice and reduce yields. However, scientists have begun using CRISPR technology to deal with this problem-they specifically target genes that control "heat resistance", such as genes that control heat shock proteins (Zafar et al., 2020). Although there are not many public success stories, considering the breakthroughs this technology has made in drought and salt resistance, it should be a matter of time before it can handle high temperatures (Kumar et al., 2023). In fact, rice itself has a mechanism to cope with high temperatures, but it is not strong enough. Now that we have gene editing technology, it is equivalent to upgrading this system. When we really cultivate a variety that is not afraid of heat and has high yields, we will not have to worry about having no food to eat even in extreme weather.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==