Signal transduction during cold, salt, and drought stresses in plants

Abstract

Abiotic stresses, especially cold, salinity and drought, are the primary causes of crop loss worldwide. Plant adaptation to environmental stresses is dependent upon the activation of cascades of molecular networks involved in stress perception, signal transduction, and the expression of specific stress-related genes and metabolites. Plants have stress-specific adaptive responses as well as responses which protect the plants from more than one environmental stress. There are multiple stress perception and signaling pathways, some of which are specific, but others may cross-talk at various steps. In this review article, we first expound the general stress signal transduction pathways, and then highlight various aspects of biotic stresses signal transduction networks. On the genetic analysis, many cold induced pathways are activated to protect plants from deleterious effects of cold stress, but till date, most studied pathway is ICE-CBF-COR signaling pathway. The Salt-Overly-Sensitive (SOS) pathway, identified through isolation and study of the sos1, sos2, and sos3 mutants, is essential for maintaining favorable ion ratios in the cytoplasm and for tolerance of salt stress. Both ABA-dependent and -independent signaling pathways appear to be involved in osmotic stress tolerance. ROS play a dual role in the response of plants to abiotic stresses functioning as toxic by-products of stress metabolism, as well as important signal transduction molecules and the ROS signaling networks can control growth, development, and stress response. Finally, we talk about the common regulatory system and cross-talk among biotic stresses, with particular emphasis on the MAPK cascades and the cross-talk between ABA signaling and biotic signaling.

Characterization of OsPM19L1 encoding an AWPM-19-like family protein that is dramatically induced by osmotic stress in rice

“…The phytohormone ABA plays a central role in the regulation of plant growth and developmental processes, as well as in the abiotic stress response, especially the response to drought or salt stress. ABA serves as an endogenous signal to initiate the adaptive responses when plants are challenged by abiotic or biotic stress (Zhu, 2002;Adie et al, 2007;Bari and Jones, 2009;Huang et al, 2012a;Ye et al, 2012;Nakashima and YamaguchiShinozaki, 2013;Danquah et al, 2014;Mehrotra et al, 2014). It has been established that two distinct pathways (ABA dependent and ABA independent) are involved in stress-responsive gene expression (Huang et al, 2012b;Yoshida et al, 2014).…”

Cold stress affects antioxidative response and accumulation of medicinally important withanolides in Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal

“…These environmental stresses, irrespective of source, trigger numerous plant responses, ranging from altered gene expression and cellular metabolism to changes in plant biochemistry, growth and development (Miller et al, 2008;Jaleel, 2009Ahmad et al, 2010Huang et al, 2012;Mishra et al, 2014). Cold stress, one of the most harmful abiotic stresses affects growth, development and geographic distribution of plants.…”

“…At low concentrations, ROS act as signaling molecules, however, when produced in excess these molecules have toxic effects. They react with cellular macromolecules (proteins, lipids and/or DNA) causing oxidative damage and inactivation of metabolic enzymes leading to impaired cell functions (Mittler, 2002;Mishra and Gupta, 2006Tuteja and Sopory, 2008Gill and Tuteja, 2010Huang et al, 2012).…”

Do volatile compounds produced by Fusarium oxysporum and Verticillium dahliae affect stress tolerance in plants?

“…Even though plants have evolved multiple mechanisms to mitigate the effect of various biotic and abiotic stresses (Fujita et al 2006; Harrison 2012; Huang et al 2012), high levels of stress adversely affect plant growth and development, resulting in reduced crop productivity and health. Increasing salinity in certain arable lands, due to irrigation, draught or a combination of both, is one of the most serious abiotic threats to global crop production, because most crops are sensitive to high levels of NaCl (Xiong and Zhu 2002).…”