Revisiting the Role of Plant Transcription Factors in the Battle against Abiotic Stress

作者：Sardar-Ali Khan, Mengzhan Li, Suo‐Min Wang, Hongju Yin · 发表于：International Journal of Molecular Sciences · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.3390/ijms19061634 · 被引用次数：293 · 研究领域：Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance、Plant Gene Expression Analysis、Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms

Owing to diverse abiotic stresses and global climate deterioration, the agricultural production worldwide is suffering serious losses. Breeding stress-resilient crops with higher quality and yield against multiple environmental stresses via application of transgenic technologies is currently the most promising approach. Deciphering molecular principles and mining stress-associate genes that govern plant responses against abiotic stresses is one of the prerequisites to develop stress-resistant crop varieties. As molecular switches in controlling stress-responsive genes expression, transcription factors (TFs) play crucial roles in regulating various abiotic stress responses. Hence, functional analysis of TFs and their interaction partners during abiotic stresses is crucial to perceive their role in diverse signaling cascades that many researchers have continued to undertake. Here, we review current developments in understanding TFs, with particular emphasis on their functions in orchestrating plant abiotic stress responses. Further, we discuss novel molecular mechanisms of their action under abiotic stress conditions. This will provide valuable information for understanding regulatory mechanisms to engineer stress-tolerant crops.