ABSTRACT
Plants being sessile are continuously exposed to environmental stresses such as drought, salinity, cold, and hot temperatures which present major challenges in achieving sustainable food production. In plants, stress-induced alteration in protein synthesis has been suggested to provide evolutionary value to the plants for enhanced survival in adverse environmental situations. Environmental stresses adversely affect plant protein metabolism and induce the synthesis of many novel stress-specific proteins. Wounding induces new proteins, alters the levels of proteins and activities of many enzymes in plants. Enhanced content of proteins and increased activity of carboxypeptidase accompanied with a decrease in the activity of protease and leucine aminopeptidase and content of free amino acid pool was reported in rice seedlings subjected to As toxicity. The increased synthesis of certain novel proteins occurs in stressed plants with a concomitant decrease in the level of certain pre-existing proteins.
