Abstract
Plants are recurrently exposed to myriads of biotic and abiotic stresses leading to several biochemical and physiological variations that cause severe impacts on plant growth and survival. To overcome these challenges, plants activate two primary defense mechanisms, such as structural response (cell wall strengthening and waxy epidermal cuticle development) and metabolic changes, including the synthesis of anti-microbial compounds and proteins, especially the pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins. PR proteins are members of a super large family of defense proteins that exhibit antimicrobial activities. Their over-expression in plants provides tolerance to many abiotic and biotic stresses. PR proteins have been classified into 17 families, including PR-5–also called thaumatin-like proteins (TLPs) that involve osmotin and osmotin-like proteins (OLPs). Osmotin was first identified in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum var. Wisconsin 38), and then its homolog proteins (OLPs) were reported from the whole plant kingdom. Osmotin and OLPs are ubiquitous in all fruits and vegetables. Their expression has been detected in various plant tissues and organs. The phylogenetic tree studies revealed that the osmotin group originated from spermatophytes. Moreover, the atomic structure of OLP has shown similarity to thaumatin and TLPs from monocot and eudicot species, which determines a strong evolutionary pressure in flowering plants for conserving thaumatin fold. This is associated with the role of these proteins against pathogens as defense molecules and to induce stress tolerance to plants against several biotic and abiotic factors. In this review, we have briefly described the development history of osmotin, including its function and mechanism to induce biotic and abiotic stress tolerance to plants.
Highlights
The growth and productivity of crop plants are mainly determined by their susceptibility to environmental stresses
Osmotin and osmotin-like proteins (OLPs) belong to the protein family 5 (PR-5) family that offer vital functions in imparting tolerance to various stresses
After the first discovery of osmotin from tobacco plants, osmotin and OLPs are identified from the whole plant kingdom
Summary
The growth and productivity of crop plants are mainly determined by their susceptibility to environmental stresses Throughout their life cycle, plants are continually subjected to several biotic and abiotic stresses, which cause biochemical, morphological, and physiological variations that affect normal plant development, productivity, and even survival (Patade et al, 2013; Kumar et al, 2015). The biotic stress factors include bacteria, fungi, and viruses, while drought, salinity, high or low temperature, ultraviolet radiations, and hypoxia are the abiotic factors that provoke stress conditions in plants (Bashir et al, 2020). To overcome these stresses, plants defend themselves by initiating different stress response mechanisms,. In the present study, we have mainly focused on the development history of osmotin and OLPs and have briefly described their function and mechanism for inducing biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in plants
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