ABSTRACT
Abiotic stresses such as high salinity, drought, high or low temperature and metal toxicity can result in extensive losses to agricultural production (Bray et al., 2000). Exposure to different abiotic stresses can cause impaired cellular function by disrupting cellular osmotic potential and inhibition of cell division can lead to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) resulting in subsequent damage to proteins or lipids (Bray et al., 2000; Hasegawa et al., 2000; Mittler, 2002, 2006; Zhu, 2001). A remarkable feature of plant adaptation to abiotic stresses is the activation of multiple
CONTENTS
7.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 149 7.1.1 Genotype/Environment Interaction .......................................................................... 150 7.1.2 Model Systems and High-Throughput Technologies ................................................ 150
7.2 Functional Genomics to Understand the Gene Regulatory Networks Involved in Abiotic Stress-Tolerance Mechanisms .................................................................................. 151 7.2.1 Plant Engineering for Analysis of the Stress-Tolerance Mechanism ....................... 152 7.2.2 Comparative Transcriptome Proling: From EST Libraries and Microarrays to Next-Generation Sequencing ........................................................... 154 7.2.3 Protein Proling ....................................................................................................... 155
7.3 Reverse Genetics Strategies for the Identication of Abiotic Stress-Resistance Genes ....... 156 7.3.1 Targeted Induced Local Lesions in Genomes (TILLING), T-DNA
Insertion Mutants and RNAi .................................................................................... 156 7.4 ROS Gene Network and Abiotic Stresses ............................................................................. 158
7.4.1 Role of TFs in Oxidative Stress and Abiotic Stress .................................................. 159 7.4.2 Aluminium Resistance/Tolerance and Its Relation to ROS...................................... 160
7.5 Plant MicroRNA and Abiotic Stresses ................................................................................. 162 7.6 Conclusions and Future Directions ....................................................................................... 164 References ...................................................................................................................................... 165
responses involving complex networks that are interconnected at several levels. One of the biggest challenges to modern sustainable agriculture development is to understand and regulate the relationship between the plants and the corresponding environmental stresses, which can be the main constraints for crop productivity (Leung, 2008; Yi and Bo, 2008). Extensive genetic studies have clearly indicated different degrees of variation for abiotic stress tolerance and it is difcult to study complex interconnected pathways involved in multiple responses to abiotic stresses, using traditional approaches. Current ‘omics’ technologies are now widely seen as promising tools for dissecting abiotic stress responses in plants.
