Chapter 1 - Abiotic stress–induced programmed cell death in plants

Abstract

All organisms should cope with numerous environmental stress factors during their life span by activating their endogenous defensive strategies. In the course of evolution, due to immobile nature of plants, they have developed adaptive processes to some extent to stress conditions. Plants face both biotic (bacteria, fungi, and virus attack) and abiotic (extreme temperatures, drought, flooding, high salinity, pesticides, heavy metals, excessive light, and ultraviolet radiation) stresses at various stages of their development. Recently, it has come forward that plant cells can no longer maintain homeostasis according to the failure of metabolic pathway upon a certain threshold of stress factors, and they initiate self-defense program that is aimed at the selective death of the cells. Such selective programmed cell death ultimately provides survival benefits for the whole plant under stressful conditions.