2024/02/15 by Showkat Ahmad Ganie, Nancy McMulkin, Alessandra Devoto · 2 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #GABA and Rice Research #Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/pce.14855
openalex publication_date 2024/02/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Plant responses to abiotic stresses are dynamic, following the unpredictable changes of physical environmental parameters such as temperature, water and nutrients. Physiological and phenotypical responses to stress are intercalated by periods of recovery. An earlier stress can be remembered as 'stress memory' to mount a response within a generation or transgenerationally. The 'stress priming' phenomenon allows plants to respond quickly and more robustly to stressors to increase survival, and therefore has significant implications for agriculture. Although evidence for stress memory in various plant species is accumulating, understanding of the mechanisms implicated, especially for crops of agricultural interest, is in its infancy. Rice is a major food crop which is susceptible to abiotic stresses causing constraints on its cultivation and yield globally. Advancing the understanding of the stress response network will thus have a significant impact on rice sustainable production and global food security in the face of climate change. Therefore, this review highlights the effects of priming on rice abiotic stress tolerance and focuses on specific aspects of stress memory, its perpetuation and its regulation at epigenetic, transcriptional, metabolic as well as physiological levels. The open questions and future directions in this exciting research field are also laid out.