Chapter 7 - Silicon-mediated modulations of genes and secondary metabolites in plants

Abstract

Crops are persistently facing diverse hazards within stressful factors. To endure in this challenging situation, plants advance a diversity of protection mechanisms. Among the different phytochemicals, secondary metabolites (SMs) build up elevated amounts within stressful circumstances and instigate signaling purposes to upregulation of defense responsive genes. SMs ensure the endurance, perseverance, and competitiveness of the plant alongside the hazard created during stress occurrence. Silicon (Si) possesses multiple strategies to adjust the morpho-anatomical and physio-biochemical processes in the plant to contest against stressful factors. Yet, some data are accessible on the feature of Si-mediated upregulating gene expression with possible function in stress tolerance. The regulation of secondary metabolism by Si has been evident. The current progressions in the era of genomics and transcriptomics have opened an opportunity for the assessment of molecular motivation connected with the Si supplementation to stress mitigation in crops. Consequently, this chapter has endeavored to argue the new findings linked to the SMs assimilation and discoveries on the regulation of imperative genes occupied in SMs production throughout environmental stresses mitigation by Si.