抄録
Environmental stresses, such as drought, cold
and heat, have negative effects on plant growth. Plants
have evolved to obtain sophisticated systems to respond
and adapt to environmental stresses. Many plant genes
with various functions are induced in response to
environmental stresses, and their gene products function
in stress tolerance. Plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA)
plays important roles in environmental stress responses
and adaptation. ABA is important for stomata closure and
induction of stress genes under abiotic stress conditions.
In environmental stress responses of plants, we have
shown the existence of both ABA-dependent and
ABA-independent regulatory systems in stressresponsive gene expression, and crosstalk in responses to
drought, cold, heat and high salinity. Recently, regulatory
systems in ABA responses including biosynthesis,
metabolism, signal transduction, and transport have been
extensively analyzed to identify key regulators in these
processes. Moreover, many stress-inducible genes are
used for the improvement of stress tolerance by
overexpression. These genes are useful for molecular
breeding of drought tolerance in transgenic crops and
vegetables.
