Integration of light and ABA signaling pathways to combat drought stress in plants.

ABSTRACT

Drought is one of the most critical stresses, which causes an enormous reduction in crop yield. Plants develop various strategies like drought escape, drought avoidance, and drought tolerance to cope with the reduced availability of water during drought. Plants adopt several morphological and biochemical modifications to fine-tune their water-use efficiency to alleviate drought stress. ABA accumulation and signaling plays a crucial role in the response of plants towards drought. Here, we discuss how drought-induced ABA regulates the modifications in stomatal dynamics, root system architecture, and the timing of senescence to counter drought stress. These physiological responses are also regulated by light, indicating the possibility of convergence of light- and drought-induced ABA signaling pathways. In this review, we provide an overview of investigations reporting light-ABA signaling cross talk in Arabidopsis as well as other crop species. We have also tried to describe the potential role of different light components and their respective photoreceptors and downstream factors like HY5, PIFs, BBXs, and COP1 in modulating drought stress responses. Finally, we highlight the possibilities of enhancing the plant drought resilience by fine-tuning light environment or its signaling components in the future.