ABSTRACT
Abiotic stresses such as drought, temperature, radiation, salinity, heavy metals/metalloid and nutrient deprivation cause physiological and metabolic disorders and adversely affect plant phenological and developmental processes. Reduction of photosynthetic pigment content, inhibition of photochemistry efficiency or the uneven function of photosystem II, inhibition of biochemical metabolism or enzymatic activities are a few common consequences associated with excess reactive oxygen species generation under various abiotic stresses. Drought is among the abiotic factors that most strongly affect plant productivity and cause serious losses to crop yield. Abscisic acid is an essential phytohormone which has a major role in various environmental cues. It accumulates under stressful environmental conditions such as dehydration, cold temperature. Omics technologies propose improved techniques and strategies for understanding the relationship between the function of specific genes and their phenotypic effects under different environmental conditions. Plant metabolomics has been defined as the identification and quantitation of all low molecular weight metabolites at a given developmental stage of the plants.
