Detection of biochemical and molecular changes in Oryza sativa L during drought stress

Drought stress is an important abiotic stress to current agriculture around the world, due to its implacable damage to agriculture crops. Plants adapt these climatic changes by various physiological, biochemical, cellular and molecular alterations. In present study, we analyzed the physiological, biochemical and cellular responses of rice seedlings during drought stress. The study emphasized the expression of different genes regulated during the drought stress. Drought stress revealed a significant reduction in the growth, photosynthetic pigments, proteins, enhanced proline and antioxidant enzymes activity. Genomic DNA and nuclear fragmentation in leaf tissues confirm the pronounced overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during drought stress. Further, the expression pattern of the antioxidant, transcription factor, programmed cell death and autophagy genes revealed their role in drought tolerance. The study concludes that drought stress alters the different attributes of the plants. To avoid stress plants response with enhanced tolerance mechanism with the activation of multiple factors. Finally, autophagy and PCD both mechanisms co-regulates and increase tolerance against the drought stress in rice.