In this course we will teach topics related to abiotic stress and minor in biotic stress. Abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, extreme temperatures, chemical toxicity and oxidative stress are serious threats to agriculture and result in the deterioration of the environment. Abiotic stress is the primary cause of crop loss worldwide, reducing average yields for most major crop plants by more than 50%.
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. The students will learn the discovery and use of new stress-tolerance-associated genes to confer plant stress tolerance.