Cell Signaling During Cold, Drought, and Salt Stress
The Plant Cell, S165–S183, Supplement 2002, www.plantcell.org © 2002 American Society of Plant Biologists Cell Signaling during Cold, Drought, and Salt Stress Liming Xiong, Karen S. Schumaker, and Jian-Kang Zhu1 Department of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 INTRODUCTION Low temperature, drought, and high salinity are common ery, or assembly of signaling components, but do not di- stress conditions that adversely affect plant growth and rectly relay the signal. They too are critical for the accurate crop production. The cellular and molecular responses of transmission of stress signals. These proteins include pro- plants to environmental stress have been studied intensively tein modifiers (e.g., enzymes for protein lipidation, meth- (Thomashow, 1999; Hasegawa et al., 2000). Understanding ylation, glycosylation, and ubiquitination), scaffolds, and the mechanisms by which plants perceive environmental adaptors (Xiong and Zhu, 2001) (Figure 1). signals and transmit the signals to cellular machinery to acti- vate adaptive responses is of fundamental importance to bi- ology. Knowledge about stress signal transduction is also Multiplicity of Abiotic Stresses as Signals for Plants and vital for continued development of rational breeding and the Need for Multiple Sensors transgenic strategies to improve stress tolerance in crops. In this review, we first consider common characteristics of Low temperature, drought, and high salinity are very com- stress signal transduction in plants, and then examine some plex stimuli that possess many different yet related at- recent studies on the functional analysis of signaling com- tributes, each of which may provide the plant cell with quite ponents. Finally, we attempt to put these components and different information.
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