Recent advances in engineering plant tolerance to abiotic stress: achievements and limitations.
TL;DR: Unraveling additional stress-associated gene resources, from both crop plants and highly salt- and drought-tolerant model plants, will enable future molecular dissection of salt-tolerance mechanisms in important crop plants.
About: This article is published in Current Opinion in Biotechnology.The article was published on 2005-04-01. It has received 1443 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Biotic stress & Abiotic stress.
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TL;DR: The integration of agroenergy crops and biorefinery manufacturing technologies offers the potential for the development of sustainable biopower and biomaterials that will lead to a new manufacturing paradigm.
Abstract: Biomass represents an abundant carbon-neutral renewable resource for the production of bioenergy and biomaterials, and its enhanced use would address several societal needs. Advances in genetics, biotechnology, process chemistry, and engineering are leading to a new manufacturing concept for converting renewable biomass to valuable fuels and products, generally referred to as the biorefinery. The integration of agroenergy crops and biorefinery manufacturing technologies offers the potential for the development of sustainable biopower and biomaterials that will lead to a new manufacturing paradigm.
5,344 citations
TL;DR: C crop heat tolerance can be enhanced by preconditioning of plants under different environmental stresses or exogenous application of osmoprotectants such as glycinebetaine and proline, and by traditional and contemporary molecular breeding protocols and transgenic approaches.
3,037 citations
TL;DR: An overview of ROS homeostasis and signalling in response to drought and salt stresses is provided and the current understanding of ROS involvement in stress sensing, stress signalling and regulation of acclimation responses is discussed.
Abstract: Water deficit and salinity, especially under high light intensity or in combination with other stresses, disrupt photosynthesis and increase photorespiration, altering the normal homeostasis of cells and cause an increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS play a dual role in the response of plants to abiotic stresses functioning as toxic by-products of stress metabolism, as well as important signal transduction molecules. In this review, we provide an overview of ROS homeostasis and signalling in response to drought and salt stresses and discuss the current understanding of ROS involvement in stress sensing, stress signalling and regulation of acclimation responses.
2,872 citations
TL;DR: This review article highlights transcriptional regulation of gene expression in response to drought and cold stresses, with particular emphasis on the role of transcription factors and cis-acting elements in stress-inducible promoters.
Abstract: Plant growth and productivity are greatly affected by environmental stresses such as drought, high salinity, and low temperature. Expression of a variety of genes is induced by these stresses in various plants. The products of these genes function not only in stress tolerance but also in stress response. In the signal transduction network from perception of stress signals to stress-responsive gene expression, various transcription factors and cis-acting elements in the stress-responsive promoters function for plant adaptation to environmental stresses. Recent progress has been made in analyzing the complex cascades of gene expression in drought and cold stress responses, especially in identifying specificity and cross talk in stress signaling. In this review article, we highlight transcriptional regulation of gene expression in response to drought and cold stresses, with particular emphasis on the role of transcription factors and cis-acting elements in stress-inducible promoters.
2,616 citations
Cites background from "Recent advances in engineering plan..."
...Some of these stress-inducible regulatory genes that encode proteins such as transcription factors have been overexpressed in transgenic plants and generate stress-tolerant phenotypes in the transgenic plants (113, 120, 135)....
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TL;DR: The recent findings on responses, adaptation, and tolerance to HT at the cellular, organellar, and whole plant levels are reviewed and various approaches being taken to enhance thermotolerance in plants are described.
Abstract: High temperature (HT) stress is a major environmental stress that limits plant growth, metabolism, and productivity worldwide Plant growth and development involve numerous biochemical reactions that are sensitive to temperature Plant responses to HT vary with the degree and duration of HT and the plant type HT is now a major concern for crop production and approaches for sustaining high yields of crop plants under HT stress are important agricultural goals Plants possess a number of adaptive, avoidance, or acclimation mechanisms to cope with HT situations In addition, major tolerance mechanisms that employ ion transporters, proteins, osmoprotectants, antioxidants, and other factors involved in signaling cascades and transcriptional control are activated to offset stress-induced biochemical and physiological alterations Plant survival under HT stress depends on the ability to perceive the HT stimulus, generate and transmit the signal, and initiate appropriate physiological and biochemical changes HT-induced gene expression and metabolite synthesis also substantially improve tolerance The physiological and biochemical responses to heat stress are active research areas, and the molecular approaches are being adopted for developing HT tolerance in plants This article reviews the recent findings on responses, adaptation, and tolerance to HT at the cellular, organellar, and whole plant levels and describes various approaches being taken to enhance thermotolerance in plants
1,392 citations
Cites background from "Recent advances in engineering plan..."
...This helps to reestablish homeostasis and to protect and repair damaged proteins and membranes [115]....
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References
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TL;DR: Key steps of the signal transduction pathway that senses ROIs in plants have been identified and raise several intriguing questions about the relationships between ROI signaling, ROI stress and the production and scavenging ofROIs in the different cellular compartments.
9,395 citations
TL;DR: The present review summarizes the recent advances in elucidating stress-response mechanisms and their biotechnological applications and examines the following aspects: regulatory controls, metabolite engineering, ion transport, antioxidants and detoxification, late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) and heat-shock proteins.
Abstract: Abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, chemical toxicity and oxidative stress are serious threats to agriculture and the natural status of the environment. Increased salinization of arable land is expected to have devastating global effects, resulting in 30% land loss within the next 25 years, and up to 50% by the year 2050. Therefore, breeding for drought and salinity stress tolerance in crop plants (for food supply) and in forest trees (a central component of the global ecosystem) should be given high research priority in plant biotechnology programs. Molecular control mechanisms for abiotic stress tolerance are based on the activation and regulation of specific stress-related genes. These genes are involved in the whole sequence of stress responses, such as signaling, transcriptional control, protection of membranes and proteins, and free-radical and toxic-compound scavenging. Recently, research into the molecular mechanisms of stress responses has started to bear fruit and, in parallel, genetic modification of stress tolerance has also shown promising results that may ultimately apply to agriculturally and ecologically important plants. The present review summarizes the recent advances in elucidating stress-response mechanisms and their biotechnological applications. Emphasis is placed on transgenic plants that have been engineered based on different stress-response mechanisms. The review examines the following aspects: regulatory controls, metabolite engineering, ion transport, antioxidants and detoxification, late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) and heat-shock proteins.
3,248 citations
TL;DR: The significance of Hsps and chaperones in abiotic stress responses in plants is summarized, and the co-operation among their different classes and their interactions with other stress-induced components are discussed.
2,309 citations
TL;DR: Evaluation of claims in the literature that the transfer of a single or a few genes can increase the tolerance of plants to saline conditions reveals that, of the 68 papers produced between 1993 and early 2003, only 19 report quantitative estimates of plant growth.
Abstract: Salinity is an ever-present threat to crop yields, especially in countries where irrigation is an essential aid to agriculture. Although the tolerance of saline conditions by plants is variable, crop species are generally intolerant of one-third of the concentration of salts found in seawater. Attempts to improve the salt tolerance of crops through conventional breeding programmes have met with very limited success, due to the complexity of the trait: salt tolerance is complex genetically and physiologically. Tolerance often shows the characteristics of a multigenic trait, with quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with tolerance identified in barley, citrus, rice, and tomato and with ion transport under saline conditions in barley, citrus and rice. Physiologically salt tolerance is also complex, with halophytes and less tolerant plants showing a wide range of adaptations. Attempts to enhance tolerance have involved conventional breeding programmes, the use of in vitro selection, pooling physiological traits, interspecific hybridization, using halophytes as alternative crops, the use of marker-aided selection, and the use of transgenic plants. It is surprising that, in spite of the complexity of salt tolerance, there are commonly claims in the literature that the transfer of a single or a few genes can increase the tolerance of plants to saline conditions. Evaluation of such claims reveals that, of the 68 papers produced between 1993 and early 2003, only 19 report quantitative estimates of plant growth. Of these, four papers contain quantitative data on the response of transformants and wild-type of six species without and with salinity applied in an appropriate manner. About half of all the papers report data on experiments conducted under conditions where there is little or no transpiration: such experiments may provide insights into components of tolerance, but are not grounds for claims of enhanced tolerance at the whole plant level. Whether enhanced tolerance, where properly established, is due to the chance alteration of a factor that is limiting in a complex chain or an effect on signalling remains to be elucidated. After ten years of research using transgenic plants to alter salt tolerance, the value of this approach has yet to be established in the field.
1,979 citations
TL;DR: This work has shown that several genes with various functions are induced by drought and cold stresses, and that various transcription factors are involved in the regulation of stress-inducible genes.
1,732 citations