Biotechnology of Promising Genes from Extremophiles to Produce Stress-Resilient Plants and Microbes for Sustainable Agriculture

Extremophiles are bizarre microbes that can grow and thrive in conditions once thought inhospitable to life. Extreme temperatures, pH levels, water activity, salinity, metal concentrations, nutrient levels, oxygen tension, radiation, and pressure levels are a few examples of extreme conditions that can occur. Extremophiles possess molecular structural modifications to survive these challenging circumstances. They create products such as extremolytes, extremozymes, and biosurfactants, which have proven valuable in a variety of industries, including sustainable agriculture and nutrition, to adapt to these situations through biochemical and physiological changes. Molecular genetics has supported previous research and provided new insights into how plants respond to challenging circumstances. The ability to develop stress-tolerant plants has improved significantly through the use of advanced techniques such as genetic engineering, gene pyramid building, and marker-assisted breeding. Genome editing tools, such as zinc finger nucleases, TALENs, and CRISPR/Cas9, offer plant biologists new and faster approaches to constructing precisely tailored crops. This book chapter reviews the current advances in the search for microbial genes and their contemporary use in various plants to improve their stress tolerance. The chapter also provides information on the different metabolic pathways that have been studied in the context of the development of stress-tolerant plants, while providing a theoretical point of view and a fundamental body of knowledge that can be used in future research on green agriculture and ecosystems.