Studies of the Elucidation of the Molecular Mechanism of Plant Environmental Stress Response to Air Pollutants Such as Ozone

Abstract

Air pollution gases, such as ozone, cause various damages to plants, such as visible damage to the leaves and growth inhibition. To elucidate the mechanism of this damage is to understand the environmental stress response mechanism of plants, and to elucidate the plant’s defense mechanism against damage, as well as provide important knowledge for imparting stress tolerance to plants. Reactive oxygen species is one of the causative substances of plant damage caused by ozone, etc., but the mechanism from its generation to the manifestation of damage is very complicated. It has been shown that signal transmission is important. In addition, the importance of stomata opening and closing regulation, which is the absorption route of ozone to the leaves, has also been determined. I now describe the development of air pollution gas-tolerant plants by genetic manipulation of the reactive oxygen scavenging enzymes, which I have been working on since the late 1980s, the elucidation of the role of plant hormones in plant air pollution gas tolerance, and I review the overall understanding of the environmental stress response mechanism of plants by molecular genetic studies using mutants, and introduce the methods used to elucidate the mechanism and the findings obtained as a result.