High temperature stress is one of the important abiotic stresses hindering in
achieving potential yield in crop plants, particularly cool-season grain legumes.
Chickpea is one of the important cool-season grain legume crops. It experiences high
temperature stress at different growth stages. Prevalence of heat stress during the
reproductive stage reduces the crop yield drastically. Although genetic resource is
available for heat stress tolerance in chickpea, studies on inheritance and its utilization
in breeding program remain very limited. Research efforts through conventional
breeding have been targeted to identify the traits for indirect selection. Advancement of
molecular breeding approaches has led to the identification of markers linked to traits
contributing to heat stress tolerance. Despite the availability of large scale genomic
resources, most of the studies were limited to identify the molecular markers linked to
quantitative trait loci (QTL). The functional genomics provides better insight into the
molecular pathways and functions of the genes involved in heat stress tolerance.
Limited information is available on the genes and pathways of gene activation
controlling effective stress resistance in chickpea. Genome-wide analysis of Hsfs gene
family resulted in the identification of Hsf genes which belong to four major groups
with several paralogous and orthologous genes, and are unevenly distributed across all
of the eight chromosomes. The next-generation sequencing and genome-editing
techniques will greatly contribute in designing abiotic stress tolerant crop plants
including chickpea.
Keywords: Chickpea, Genetic variability, Genomics, Heat stress.