Abstract
Abiotic stresses adversely affect plant growth and agricultural productivity. According to the current climate prediction models, crop plants will face a greater number of environmental stresses, which are likely to occur simultaneously in the future. So it is very urgent to breed broad-spectrum tolerant crops in order to meet an increasing demand for food productivity due to global population increase. As one of the largest families of transcription factors (TFs) in plants, NAC TFs play vital roles in regulating plant growth and development processes including abiotic stress responses. Lots of studies indicated that many stress-responsive NAC TFs had been used to improve stress tolerance in crop plants by genetic engineering. In this review, the recent progress in NAC TFs was summarized, and the potential utilization of NAC TFs in breeding abiotic stress tolerant transgenic crops was also be discussed. In view of the complexity of field conditions and the specificity in multiple stress responses, we suggest that the NAC TFs commonly induced by multiple stresses should be promising candidates to produce plants with enhanced multiple stress tolerance. Furthermore, the field evaluation of transgenic crops harboring NAC genes, as well as the suitable promoters for minimizing the negative effects caused by over-expressing some NAC genes, should be considered.
Highlights
As sessile organisms, plants continuously suffer from a broad range of environmental stresses including abiotic and biotic stresses
The results of studies performed under individual stress factors are not suitable for the complex field conditions, and it is crucial to characterize the response of plants to multiple stresses and identify multiple stress responsive genes by imposing multiple stresses simultaneously as an entirely new stress (Mittler, 2006). Manipulation of these multiple stress responsive genes, especially multifunctional transcription factors (TFs), will provide the opportunity to breed the broad-spectrum tolerant crops with high yields. Based on these considerations above, this paper reviews the progress of NAC TFs involved in plant abiotic stress responses, and prospects the future study direction for the challenge of multiple environmental stresses in agriculture, concerning their potential utilization for plant multiple stress tolerance in the field conditions
Whole-genome expression profiling and transcriptome studies have enabled researchers to identify a number of putative NAC TFs involved in abiotic stress responses
Summary
Plants continuously suffer from a broad range of environmental stresses including abiotic and biotic stresses. A large array of stress responsive genes have been identified in many plants, including Arabidopsis and rice. Manipulation of these multiple stress responsive genes, especially multifunctional TFs, will provide the opportunity to breed the broad-spectrum tolerant crops with high yields.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
