Rapid injuries of high temperature in plants

Abstract

Global climate changes particularly high temperature is predicted to have a general negative effect on plant growth and development, that might lead to catastrophic loss of crop productivity. High temperature has a wide range of effect on plant in terms of plant physiological, biochemical processes such as photosynthesis, respiration water relations, and gene regulatory pathways. The injury inflicted on plant tissues under such extremes weakens the cell membrane, which leads to the production of reactive oxygen species that attacks major sites i.e photosynthetic apparatus, the photosystems, mainly photosystem II (PSII) and the respiratory pathways. To cope with rising temperature conditions, plants possess a number of adaptive, avoidance, or acclimation mechanisms. In addition to major tolerance mechanisms, plants also employ ion transporters, proteins, osmoprotectants, antioxidants and many other factors involved in signaling cascades and transcriptional control that are activated to offset stress-induced biochemical and physiological alterations. This article reviews the recent findings on high temperature induced injuries and responses at the cellular, organellar and whole plant levels.