Transcription factors involved in acid stress responses in plants

With the fast growth of world population and climate change, agricultural production is being a main global issue and challenge. Leading to deficiencies of several essential elements and toxicity of heavy metals in plants, acid soil is one of the most important limitations to crop productivity worldwide. Although lime is widely used to ameliorate acid soil, it is not economic and ideal. Identification of the mechanisms and genes conferring tolerance to acid soil stress could be an alternative way to improve the productivity in acid soil through breeding tolerant crops. Aluminum (Al) toxicity and phosphorous (P) deficiency are considered as two severe constraints to plant growth in acid soil. Several genes related to tolerance to Al toxicity and P deficiency have been identified and analysed in various crop plants. This review describes the current understanding of transcription factors involved in the transcriptional regulation of tolerance to Al toxicity and P deficiency in Arabidopsis and rice. © 2016, Archana Sharma Foundation of Calcutta.