ABSTRACT
Lessons from the Studies with Model Plants Qingxi J. Shen
Jian Wang
SUMMARY. Drought is one of the major factors limiting plant growth and productivity. Plant adaptation to drought is dependent on molecular networks for drought perception, signal transduction, expression of a subset of genes and production of metabolites that protect and maintain the structure of cellular components. In general, the drought response pathways can be classified into two categories: one is dependent on the stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA) and the other is ABA-independent. Many genes in these pathways have been identified, thereby providing guidance in choosing genes for engineering of drought tolerance. The re view highlights the genes that mediate drought response and tolerance, and discusses lessons learned from engineering for drought tolerance in
Qingxi J. Shen and Jian Wang are affiliated with the Department of Biological Sci ences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154.
