Multilevel Regulation of Abiotic Stress Responses in Plants

Abstract

The sessile lifestyle of plants requires them to cope with stresses in situ. Plants overcome abiotic stresses by altering structure/morphology, and in some extreme conditions, by compressing the life cycle to survive the stresses in the form of seeds. Genetic and molecular studies have uncovered complex regulatory processes that coordinate stress adaptation and tolerance in plants, which are integrated at various levels. Investigating natural variation in stress responses has provided important insights into the evolutionary processes that shape the integrated regulation of adaptation and tolerance. This review primarily focuses on the current understanding of how transcriptional, post-transcriptional, post-translational, and epigenetic processes along with genetic variation orchestrate stress responses in plants. We also discuss the current and future development of computational tools to identify biologically meaningful factors from high dimensional, genome-scale data and construct the signaling networks consisting of these components.

Epigenetic signatures of stress adaptation and flowering regulation in response to extended drought and recovery in Zea mays

“…The ability of chromatin to undergo both dynamic and stable structure changes in response to stress has been considered a mechanism for regulation of primary stress response (Asensi‐Fabado et al, ; Haak et al, ) and memory storage (Avramova, ; Bäurle, ; Friedrich et al, ; Kim et al, ; Lamke & Bäurle, ; Sani et al, ). In line with previous works, our results indicated a direct correlation between the presence of both H3K4me3 and H3K9ac and gene expression after stress application.…”

“…Drought induces specific stress signaling pathways, usually related to hormones like abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonic acid (JA) and ethylene, resulting in production of proteins that prevent cellular damage (Tiwari, Lata, Chauhan, Prasad, & Prasad, ). Also regulatory proteins, including transcription and post‐transcription factors, as well as kinases and phosphatases, and signaling molecule levels are altered by water stress (Haak et al, ; Janiak, Kwaśniewski, & Szarejko, ; Nakashima, Yamaguchi‐Shinozaki, & Shinozaki, ). In addition, chromatin regulatory mechanisms have a fundamental role in spatio‐temporal gene expression changes during stress response and adaptation (Asensi‐Fabado, Amtmann, & Perrella, ).…”

Engineering abiotic stress response in plants for biomass production

“…The hda6, hda19 and hdc1-1 mutant showed hypersensitivity towards NaCl and ABA during seedling stage (69). However, HDC1 overexpression reduces NaCl and ABA sensitivity and increases biomass (70).…”

“…The Arabidopsis homolog of RXT3 (REGULATOR of TRANSCRIPTION 3), named HISTONE DEACETYLASE COMPLEX1 (HDC1) shows direct interaction with histone deacetylases HDA6 and HDA19 (69). The hda6, hda19 and hdc1-1 mutant showed hypersensitivity towards NaCl and ABA during seedling stage (69).…”

Molecular response of canola to salt stress: insights on tolerance mechanisms

“…After sensing, the messages are transduced to the downstream proteins, kinase proteins, and finally to transcription factors (Boudsocq & Sheen 2013;Weinl & Kudla 2009 An alarming presence of stress in the environment leads plants to organize multilevel regulatory processes in order to mount an appropriate response (Haak et al 2017). At transcriptional level, the transcription factors, MYC2, AREB, and NAC, have been found to participate in responding to salt stress Urano et al 2009).…”