Plant Stress Regulation. In Recent Advances in Plant stress Physiology, pp-89-116

Abstract

Plants have a series of fine mechanisms for responding to environmental changes, which has been established during evolution and experiments. These mechanisms are involved in many aspects of physiology, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology. Alterations in the levels of key signalling metabolites or transcription factors could provide an explanation for how plant metabolism regulation is altered by exposure to various stresses. Plant defence response genes are transcriptionally activated by biotic, as well by different forms of abiotic stress, the induction of specific defence genes in the response against certain pathogens, are dependent on specific environmental conditions, suggesting the existence of a complex signaling network that allows the plant to recognize and protect itself against pathogens and environmental stress. A variety of signal transducers exist in plants, for better understanding let us discuss some of them like Ca2+, reactive oxygen species (ROS), abscisic acid (ABA), salicylic acid (SA), jasmonic acid (JA) and protein kinases involved in phosphorylation cascades. The main components of stress-induced signalling molecules are the cross-talk between the different signalling pathways allows plants to adjust their responses depending on the combination of stimuli. A deep understanding of the mechanisms that respond to stress and sustain stress resistance is required. Here presented an overview of several mechanisms that interact in the stress regulation in plant.