Transcription factor mediated abiotic stress signaling in rice

Abstract

Abiotic stresses are the major cause that limits productivity of crop plants worldwide. Plants respond to these stress conditions at physiological and molecular levels. At the molecular level, the expression of thousands of genes is altered in response to various abiotic stress conditions. Several studies have been performed to find out the role of these genes in abiotic stress signaling. However, among these, transcription factor encoding genes are most important because many of them act as ‘key or master regulators’ of gene expression. Transcription factors appear to be attractive targets to unravel the molecular mechanisms of abiotic stress responses and engineering abiotic stress tolerance in plants. However, the role of only a few transcription factors in abiotic stress responses have been elucidated in rice until now and require a detailed investigation for several such candidate genes. In this review, our endeavour is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the intricate regulatory network of transcription factors operative during abiotic stress responses with greater emphasis on rice.