Transcription Factors for Biotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

With the erratic changes in climate, crop plants are facing many forms of biotic stresses. When plants are under stress, among several gene families, regulatory genes play a vital role in signal transduction in modulating the expression of genes underpinning several defense pathways and targeting regulatory proteins (viz, transcription factors (TFs)) can be the alternative. Transcription factors directly regulate the downstream R genes and are excellent candidates for disease resistance breeding.  Till date, numerous transcription factors have been identified and characterized structurally and functionally. Of them, TF families such as WRKY, NAC, Whirly, Apetala2 (AP2), ethylene responsive elements (ERF) etc. are found to be associated with transcriptional reprogramming of plant defense response. These TFs are responsive to the pathogen’s PAMPs/DAMPs - host’s PRR protein interactions and specifically binds to the cis-elements of defense genes and regulate their expression.