In this course "Stress Plant Biology" we will emphasize how the plants response to abiotic stress at physiological and molecular level. Abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, chemical toxicity, nutritional and oxidative stress are serious threats to agriculture production, and the primary cause of crop loss worldwide. Knowledge in molecular response of plant facing abiotic stress has gained huge progress in the last 20 years. Desiccation of seeds is considered to be a prerequisite for the completion of life cycle; desiccation of pollen is considered necessary for the dispersal by wind, and only limited plants (resurrection plant) acquire desiccation tolerance in the vegetative growth. Desiccation/drought tolerance is the result of a dynamic process and appears to be mediated by the protective systems that prevent lethal damage, and appears to be the result of the co-ordination of molecular, physiological and biochemical alterations. In addition, topics like molecular response to wounding stress, temperature stress, salt stress, nutritional stress and heavy metal stress, along with phytoremediation and translational biology will be touched in the class.
The knowledge of regulatory genes and an understanding of their mode of action will provide an important starting point for the improvement of crop plants to face the biotic and abotic environment. Studies on stress-induced transcription factors (TF) in plants are just emerging, and for most of the identified transcription factors, the target genes are yet to be identified. Studies demonstrated the important role of TFs in the acquisition of stress tolerance, which may ultimately contribute to agricultural and environmental practices. Teaching materials will be mostly derived from the recent publication in the plant science journals.