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Published on: March 30, 2018
ABA-centric signaling networks for drought resilience in cereals: from transcriptional reprogramming to epigenetic
Muhammad Talha Aslam1, Saira Ghafoor1, Muhammad Zia-Ul-Haq2
1Jiangxi Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Crop Physiology, Ecology, and Genetic Breeding, Ministry of Education, College of Agronomy, 1101 Fang Zhimin Avenue, Economic and Technological Development Zone, Nanchang, 330045, China.
Abstract:
Drought stress poses a significant threat to global agricultural productivity, necessitating comprehensive understanding of plant adaptive strategies. Abscisic acid (ABA) improves plant physio-biochemical response against drought stress by maintaining stomatal regulation, osmo-protectant accumulation, and transcriptional reprogramming. Therefore, complete understanding of the ABA-based regulatory network is pivotal for engineering drought-resilient crops to combat climate change. This review summarizes ABA-centric networks in cereals, highlighting three key advances such as: (1) tissue-specific coordination of NCED3-mediated ABA biosynthesis, ABC/NPF transporter-dependent distribution, and CYP707A-driven catabolism fine-tunes drought responses; (2) epigenetic modifiers (ATX1-H3K4me3, miR169a-NF-YA5) establish stress memory, enabling accelerated reactivation of LEA-RD29 genes during recurrent drought; and (3) CRISPR-edited WRKY18 and root-specific OsNAC6 overexpression enhance resilience without yield reduction. This revise also discusses the ABA-jasmonate crosstalk as an unresolved frontier and futuristic approach that should prioritize multi-omics technologies such as CRISPR-Cas13 for specific RNA editing and field validation of epi-primed crops. Integrating these molecular insights will help advance climate-resilient agriculture and secure food production in drought-stressed areas of the world.
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Transcription
Transcription is the process of synthesizing RNA from a DNA sequence by RNA polymerase. It is the first step in producing a protein from a gene sequence. Additionally, many other proteins and regulatory sequences are involved in the proper synthesis of messenger RNA (mRNA). Regulation of transcription is responsible for the differentiation of all the different types of cells and often for the proper cellular response to environmental signals.
Transcription Can Produce Different Kinds...
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