Chapter 42 - Molecular Approaches for Dissecting and Improving Drought and Heat Tolerance in Rice

Abstract

The reproductive stage of rice is highly vulnerable to drought and heat stress which can cause yield reductions up to 50%. Developments in plant molecular biology and genomics has enabled the capture of the changes in plants under stress and have helped to decipher various molecular pathways, genes including regulatory genes and their downstream partners, gene networks and their regulation at transcriptional, translational, and epigenome levels. Also, the availability of high quality rice genome sequence information has facilitated rice researchers to precisely identify genomic regions/quantitative trait loci that control drought and heat stress tolerance and unravel the molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance. Many genes were functionally validated for drought and heat stress tolerance following a transgenic approach. In this chapter, impact, mechanism, physiological, biochemical and molecular responses, and oxidative stress management with respect to drought and heat stress tolerance are elaborated.