Plant abiotic stress: Deciphering remedial strategies for emerging problem

Abstract

Growing in their natural environment, plants often encounter unfavorable environmental conditions that interrupt normal plant growth and productivity. Drought, high/low temperature and saline soils are the most common abiotic stresses that plants encounter in their natural environments. Molecular and genomic analyses have facilitated gene discovery and enabled genetic engineering using several functional or regulatory genes that are known to be involved in stress response and preliminary tolerance, to activate specific or broad pathways related to abiotic stress tolerance in plants. Through the use of transgenic technology, goals such as production of plants with desired traits that were unattainable with traditional selection programs are achieved. This review deals with recent advancement in understanding the role of various stress responsive genes and their critical importance for explaining the control mechanism of abiotic stress tolerance and engineering stress tolerant crops based on the expression of specific stress related genes. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.