Biotechnological Approaches for Improvement of Spices

Biotechnological tools like micropropagation, somaclonal variation, in vitro conservation, synseed technology, protoplast fusion, production of flavor and coloring components, molecular characterization, genome sequencing, gene mining, development of novel transgenics, and gene editing have great potential in conservation, utilization, increasing the production, and productivity of spices. Efficient micropropagation systems are available for many spices that are being used for propagation, conservation, safe movement, exchange of germplasm, crop improvement through somaclonal variation, and transgenic pathways. Studies on the production of metabolites, flavor, and coloring compounds using immobilized and transformed cell cultures are being attempted. Molecular markers and maps are being generated for crop profiling, fingerprinting, identification of duplicates, and marker-assisted breeding. Transcriptome sequencing is becoming an important tool for identification, isolation, and cloning of useful genes. Transgenics incorporating with useful and novel gene combinations will help in developing varieties with biotic and abiotic factor resistance and climate resilience. Whole genome and transcriptome sequencing is helping in better understanding of genetic architecture and gene to gene as well as gene to environment interaction. The chapter discusses briefly the above technologies as applied to major spices.