ABSTRACT
Heavy metals (HMs) are present as essential and non-essential in the ecosystem and could be hazards for plant system when present in excess. It has been reported in several studies that excess amount of HMs trans-located to functional organs causing alterations in key metabolic processes and restrict the growth as well as productivity of plants. To counterbalancing the HMs toxicity, plants have evolved complex mechanism at physiological, biochemical and molecular level to regulate the uptake, mobilization and intracellular concentration of such metal ions. Proteins are the major macromolecule that plays an essential role in plant stress responses and directly influenced by post-translational modifications. Proteomics is the promising tool for analysis of complete proteome or sum of all proteins from a plant cell or tissue under the HMs stress condition. On the other hand, genomics studies offering networks of stress perception, signal transduction, and protective responses of stressed tissues. They involves multiple parallel approaches, including global transcript profiling coupled with using mutants and transgenics, in order to study gene function within a high-throughput setting. This chapter summarizes tolerance strategies of plants under HM stress covering the role of metabolites, stress-inducible proteins, transcription factors, and genes. An attempt is also made to present the state of the art of recent development in proteomic and genomics approaches so far for better understanding the complex mechanism of plant HM stress acclimatization.
