ABSTRACT
Plants being autotrophic in nature, produce sugars by the process of photo-synthesis and use it in various metabolic processes. Soluble sugars like sucrose, glucose, and fructose not only act as metabolic precursors and cell structure constituents but do also act as signal molecules for regulating various processes involved in plant development and growth. Apart from these primary roles, these soluble sugars also play an important role in counteracting various types of stresses including biotic as well as abiotic. These sugars actually act as signaling molecules that initiate various stress response pathways by modifying the expression of various stress-specific genes and proteins involved in stress pathways. Actually, under stress conditions, plants observe an increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn leads to stress. Soluble sugars do have a close association with various metabolic enzymes, which are strongly interrelated to stress induced ROS accumulation in plants. The main goal of this chapter is to provide updated knowledge about the role of various sugars in helping the plants to cope with stress. Future insights about the other possible sugars to be explored for such activities have also been documented.
