title: Bioengineering for salinity tolerance in plants: state of the art.
abstract: Genetic engineering of plants for abiotic stress tolerance is a challenging task because of its multifarious nature. Comprehensive studies for developing abiotic stress tolerance are in progress, involving genes from different pathways including osmolyte synthesis, ion homeostasis, antioxidative pathways, and regulatory genes. In the last decade, several attempts have been made to substantiate the role of "single-function" gene(s) as well as transcription factor(s) for abiotic stress tolerance. Since, the abiotic stress tolerance is multigenic in nature, therefore, the recent trend is shifting towards genetic transformation of multiple genes or transcription factors. A large number of crop plants are being engineered by abiotic stress tolerant genes and have shown the stress tolerance mostly at laboratory level. This review presents a mechanistic view of different pathways and emphasizes the function of different genes in conferring salt tolerance by genetic engineering approach. It also highlights the details of successes achieved in developing salt tolerance in plants thus far.
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Marine Biotechnology and Ecology, Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), G.B. Road, Bhavnagar, 364021 Gujarat, India. pagarwal@csmcri.org
authors.forename: Pradeep K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Pushp Sheel
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Shukla
authors.forename: Kapil
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.forename: Bhavanath
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jha
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics; D057005:Bioengineering; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D005818:Genetic Engineering; D018521:Plant Physiological Phenomena / Q000235:genetics; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics*; D054712:Salinity; D055049:Salt Tolerance / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000235:genetics