ABSTRACT
During growth and development, plants encounter diverse abiotic stresses, which may cause morphological or physiological changes underpinned by expression of stress-induced transcriptomes. Numerous studies have reported on spatial and temporal plant responses to individually applied abiotic stresses including drought, heat, salinity, nutrient deficiency, and heavy metal toxicity. Other studies have mined “omics” data to identify target genes, proteins, or metabolites for use in developing transgenic plants with enhanced tolerance to specific stress factors. In nature, however, plants often encounter multiple stress factors concurrently, making the transgenic approach for developing crop varieties with improved resilience against a single stress less likely to provide effective protection to survive stress combinations. As such, renewed interest in studying plant responses to combined stresses is growing. Among diverse stresses, drought and heat are often inseparably linked in the field, making plants more prone to the harsh combined effects, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. This chapter reviews some of the “omics” studies of plant responses to combined drought and heat stress in Arabidopsis, tomato, and cereals. Potential targets for use in transgenic or gene-editing plant transformation platforms for improving combined stress tolerance are discussed.
