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Genetic Modification of Plants pp 139–157Cite as

Drought Stress Tolerance

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Part of the book series: Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry ((AGRICULTURE,volume 64))

Abstract

Drought stress severely limits plant growth and productivity. Traditional plant breeding strategies have made significant contributions to the generation of stress-tolerant plants. The problem in setting-up strategies for generating drought stress tolerant plants is the complex multigenic nature of the tolerance mechanisms. The targeted engineering of metabolic pathways correlated with drought stress has emerged as a promising approach to obtain plants with improved stress tolerance. The transformation of plants using regulatory genes is particularly attractive for producing abiotic stress tolerant plants. The over-expression of regulatory genes can activate the expression of many downstream target genes simultaneously and thus entire pathways can be modified. This review summarizes recent advances in metabolc engineering stress tolerance pathways in crop plants. Emphasis is placed on using regulatory and signalling genes as tools to engineer drought stress.

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Acknowledgements

Work in the laboratory of D.B. was supported by grants from the German Research Council, by the European training network ADONIS, and by an ERA-PG project. D.B. is a member of the European COST action International Network of Plant Abiotic Stress (INPAS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of Plants (IMBIO), University of Bonn, Kirschallee 1, 53115, Bonn, Germany

    Dorothea Bartels & Jonathan Phillips

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  1. Dorothea Bartels
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  2. Jonathan Phillips
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Correspondence to Dorothea Bartels .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Botanisches Institut, Universität Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, Kiel, 24118, Germany

    Frank Kempken

  2. Inst. Pflanzenbau und Pflanzenzüchtung, Universität Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, Kiel, 24098, Germany

    Christian Jung

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Bartels, D., Phillips, J. (2010). Drought Stress Tolerance. In: Kempken, F., Jung, C. (eds) Genetic Modification of Plants. Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, vol 64. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02391-0_8

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