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Exploring the Critical Function and Molecular Mechanism of WRKY Transcription Factor Family in Regulating Plant Response Under Abiotic Stress Conditions

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New Frontiers in Plant-Environment Interactions

Part of the book series: Environmental Science and Engineering ((ESE))

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Abstract

Environmental stresses adversely affect plant growth and development. However, the signaling pathways and metabolic response mechanisms may differ, and most types of abiotic stresses affect the cellular redox homeostasis ultimately affecting the yield performance of the plant. In response, plants evolve several regulatory proteins that act as central regulators of abiotic stress responses involved in temperature, salinity, and oxidative stresses. Plants rapidly respond through complex genetic and biochemical networks primarily by transducing signals to stress-related transcription factors (TFs) such as MYB, bZIP, AP2/EREBP, NAC, and WRKY of which WRKY is the most extensively studied TF family in different plant stress responses. The WRKY gene family encodes a large group of transcription factors (TFs) that play essential roles in diverse stress responses and developmental processes. Here, we summarize the regulatory mechanisms of WRKY transcription factors and their responses to different abiotic stress conditions. We also discuss the future perspectives of WRKY transcription factor research.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Govt. of India, (Ref. No. 38(1587)/16/EMR-II, dated: 17/05/2016 to SR), and SERB, DST, Govt of India (Ref. No. ECR/2016/000539 and Ref. No. CRG/2021/000989-G to SR) for providing financial supports performing research related to the topic discussed in this review. SB is thankful to CSIR, Govt. of India (09/025(0261)/2018-EMR-I) for the research fellowship. AM is thankful to UGC (Ref. No. 221610047029), Govt. of India for the research fellowship. MK is thankful to DST-SERB (Ref No. CRG/2021/000989-G). PR is thankful to UGC (715/(CSIR-UGC NET JUNE 2019)), Govt. of India for the research fellowship. SN is thankful for the DST-INSPIRE (DST/INSPIRE Fellowship/2021/IF200219) fellowship. We apologize to those authors whose work could not be cited due to space limitations.

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  1. Department of Botany, UGC Centre for Advanced Studies, The University of Burdwan, Golapbag Campus, Burdwan, West Bengal, 713104, India

    Samrat Banerjee, Arnab Mukherjee, Mousumi Khatun, Pinaki Roy, Shreyashi Nandi & Sujit Roy

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  1. Samrat Banerjee
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  2. Arnab Mukherjee
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  3. Mousumi Khatun
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  4. Pinaki Roy
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  5. Shreyashi Nandi
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  6. Sujit Roy
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Correspondence to Sujit Roy .

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  1. Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India

    Tariq Aftab

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Banerjee, S., Mukherjee, A., Khatun, M., Roy, P., Nandi, S., Roy, S. (2023). Exploring the Critical Function and Molecular Mechanism of WRKY Transcription Factor Family in Regulating Plant Response Under Abiotic Stress Conditions. In: Aftab, T. (eds) New Frontiers in Plant-Environment Interactions. Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43729-8_6

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