Engineering drought tolerance in plants by modification of transcription and signalling factors.

Drought is one of the most critical environmental stresses adversely disturbing the yield and growth of plants worldwide. Acclimatizationto environmental constraints depends upon the activation of plant signalling pathways participating in signal transduction, stress perception, and the stress-related gene expression. The molecular tailoring of genes can facilitate the development of improved crops. As most analysis have been performed under controlled conditions, there still remains a gap to execute these approaches to the cultivars of staple food crops. Engineering some specific regulatory genes has emerged as a promising technology for regulating the expression of numerous stress-responsive genes. Transcription factors (TFs) are novel regulatory genes genetically modified to produce stress-resistant crops. A considerable improvement has been made in the discovery of new signalling cascades and TFs, but to match the requirements of agriculture today, we must be capable of turning this knowledge into drought-tolerant transgenic crops in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]