Download or read book Understanding the Molecular Mechanisms of Plant Responses to Abiotic Stress written by Sang Yeol Lee and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plant responses to environmental stress are governed by complex molecular and biochemical signal transduction processes, which act in coordination to determine tolerance or sensitivity at the whole plant level. Upon exposure to abiotic stress, plants express a sophisticated coordinated response to reprogram interconnected defense networks and metabolic pathways, by alterations in the transcription, translation, and post-translational modification of defense-related genes and proteins. Traditionally, physiological and phenotypic responses were the major ones to be collected in plant stress biology. However, modern studies include the identification of key genes that influence stress tolerance and plant growth under the imposing stress and the verification of gene functions using knock out mutants or overexpression lines. In addition, genomics has become a necessary tool for the understanding of plant stress responses at the whole genome levels. The identification of stress-tolerant plant resources and the investigation of the functional role of the genetic variants is also a valuable tool in this research field. Recently, the advent of CRISPR/Cas genome editing technology, enables these variations to be introduced in crops for improved stress tolerance traits. Through the understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in plant signaling in response to abiotic stress and crop performance characters under stress conditions, we hope to open new ways for the breeding of superior crops.