Plant tolerance to combined stress: An overview
Abstract
The demand for food is predicted to increase by 70% in 2050 due to increasing world population. Efforts are being made to increase food production. However, abiotic and biotic stresses, which tend to reduce crop yield and grain quality, are hindering these efforts. Significant improvement in crop productivity can be accomplished by developing plants tolerant to multiple abiotic and biotic stresses. Plants adapt and tolerate multiple stresses using sophisticated biochemical and molecular mechanisms. These are mediated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) and phytohormones such as abscisic acid, ethylene, jasmonic acid and salicylic acid which in turn regulate ion channels and kinase cascades. Several transcription factors (TFs) including WRKY, ERF, NAC, and MYB TFs are involved in this process. Understanding these known and novel mechanisms is an important step toward developing tolerance to multiple stresses. Future directions in this field for enhancing crop productivity are discussed. ? Springer (India) Pvt. Ltd. 2017. All rights reserved.
Journal
Plant Tolerance to Individual and Concurrent Stresses