Chapter 20 - Mechanism of temperature stress acclimation and the role of transporters in plants

Abstract

Geographical alteration of heat waves with uncontrollable modality is expected to expose continents to extremely unprecedented climatic conditions in future. As a result, emergent abiotic factors like heat stress and cold stress can exert dramatic impacts on agriculture and ecology of plants. There are notable adaptations in xeromorphic plants against heat stress, similarly near-arctic plants possess cold-tolerant traits, but other plants, including crops suffer from various degrees of damages. On physiological ground, heat and cold stress both remarkably affect plants, excruciating their tissue equilibrium, eventually leading to injurious responses and ultimately expiry. Heat-induced damages on cellular level include hampering of ion homeostasis, ROS generation, and subsequent oxidative stress. On the other hand, cold stress changes the physical state of membrane bilayer by enhancing the rigidity and metabolic pathways get compromised. Subcellular damage includes impaired activity of chloroplast and mitochondria that deters photosynthetic and respiratory functions. To fight against these wide array of problems, cellular and organelle membrane-bound transporters play a pivotal role. Effort to restore the homeostasis is undertaken by ion transporters, compatible solute transporters, and osmoregulation-related transporters. Categorically, various sugars like sucrose, fructose, and amino acids like proline and compatible solutes like glycine-betaine are involved in the rescue, which are strategically rearranged and compartmentalized by their concerned transporters after the inception of stress signaling. Cold and heat acclimatization is also facilitated by calcium transporters involved in signal transduction and plastid residing transporters which play the central role in cellular redox regulation and retrograde signaling. Also, aquaporin channels have critical role in barring intercellular ice crystal accumulation, preventing freezing damage. Model organisms as well crop plants can be subjected to transgenic research and compatible solute supplementing approach to inculcate thermo-tolerance. More heat and cold stress transporters are being identified over the decade, and their metabolic and developmental interplay roles are fortifying our understanding. Thus, progressive study of the intricate signaling pathways incorporating abiotic stress transporters is emerging as a promising section of plant research.