Multi-Omics and Integrative Approach towards Understanding Salinity Tolerance in Rice: A Review

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Rice is one of the most significant food crops worldwide, predominantly in Asian countries. Rice plant growth and yield are profoundly affected by salinity stress. Understanding the mechanisms of salinity stress is highly complicated. Therefore, to understand the molecular mechanisms, enhance the yield and development of salinity tolerant cultivars, and achieve spectacular gains in the future, the use of high-throughput frontier technologies must be knotted with a research basis. Keeping these lacunae in mind, this comprehensive review addresses the literature gap and presents the multi-omics and integrative approaches to harnessing the novel avenues of salinity stress mechanisms in rice. Further, this review will be a significant pioneer for researchers working with plant stress biology by employing multi-omics and integrative approaches. ABSTRACT: Rice (Oryza sativa L.) plants are simultaneously encountered by environmental stressors, most importantly salinity stress. Salinity is the major hurdle that can negatively impact growth and crop yield. Understanding the salt stress and its associated complex trait mechanisms for enhancing salt tolerance in rice plants would ensure future food security. The main aim of this review is to provide insights and impacts of molecular-physiological responses, biochemical alterations, and plant hormonal signal transduction pathways in rice under saline stress. Furthermore, the review highlights the emerging breakthrough in multi-omics and computational biology in identifying the saline stress-responsive candidate genes and transcription factors (TFs). In addition, the review also summarizes the biotechnological tools, genetic engineering, breeding, and agricultural practicing factors that can be implemented to realize the bottlenecks and opportunities to enhance salt tolerance and develop salinity tolerant rice varieties. Future studies pinpointed the augmentation of powerful tools to dissect the salinity stress-related novel players, reveal in-depth mechanisms and ways to incorporate the available literature, and recent advancements to throw more light on salinity responsive transduction pathways in plants. Particularly, this review unravels the whole picture of salinity stress tolerance in rice by expanding knowledge that focuses on molecular aspects.