Abiotic Stresses-Induced Physiological Alteration in Wheat

Abstract

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops around the world, and the greater part of the world population depends on it as their essential vital nourishment. However, in agricultural systems, wheat plants face different stress conditions, e.g., salinity, drought, heavy metals, high and low temperature, radiation, and nutritional disorders that restrict their crop productivity. These stressors produce undesired effects on plant growth and development. Exposure to different abiotic stresses during plant life cycle leads to reactive oxygen species excessive accumulation, and consequently oxidation of membrane lipids and proteins occurs. Moreover, these stresses lower the activity of cell physiology including photosynthetic efficiency and protein synthesis that could be due to the osmotic stress and nutritional imbalance. They can also increase synthesis and accumulation of different osmolytes/osmoprotectants. Accumulation of organic solutes and antioxidant molecules can protect plant cells by balancing the osmotic strength of both the plant vacuole and the external environment. Furthermore, when plants expose to adverse conditions, other physiological responses such as phytohormone signaling pathways and developmental signals are triggered to cope with the stress. Changing transcript levels of genes involved in signaling pathways or stress response was also occurred. This chapter documents the different mechanisms underlying abiotic stresses impact on wheat plants based on recent advances.