Genetic Improvement of Proso Millet Through Advanced Biotechnological Approaches

Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is a short duration climate resilient millet crop with high nutritional quality. It is one of the oldest domesticated cereal crop and is distributed throughout the world. This C4 crop has very high resource and water use efficiency and grows very well in poor and marginal lands. Though the crop has inherent stress tolerance and rich nutritional profile, the genetics and mechanism behind are not well understood. The rekindled importance of millets worldwide has attracted research investments and kick started advanced research programs in millets recently. The modern biotechnological approaches are powerful in dissecting complex processes and developing deployable tools for crop improvement. The recently released genome sequence information of proso millet has generated considerable genomic information in the crop which has taken the crop a step forward. Comparative genomic and pangenomic approaches can provide an even concrete understanding of the genes that are conserved and amenable for cross-transfer from other related crops. Few transcriptomic studies have thrown light onto the differentially expressed genes and proteins in proso under various stresses. Proteomics and metabolomics approaches can also be employed to dissect the nutritional and nutraceutical profile of the crop. Apart from the omics tools, techniques like site-directed mutagenesis, RNA interference, CRISPR, DNA methylation etc. can also be exploited in the crop. This chapter discusses the progress made in genetic improvement of proso millet through modern biotechnological approaches and the way ahead.