209

Towards Engineering Smart Transcription Factors for Enhanced Abiotic Stress

Nekrasov et al., 2013; Shan et al., 2013). However, innovations in the

application of dCas9-mediated multiplexing have supported researchers to

introduce desired transcriptional manipulations at a relatively faster pace

compared to other methods.

7.4 CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK

Plants being sessile are exposed to different abiotic stresses simultane­

ously under natural environments. Plant survival in such environments

depends on coordinated activation of multiple genes, signaling, and stress

response pathways which lead to either synergistic or antagonistic effect

on each other. Current progress on exploring the role of various plant TFs

highlighted the importance in conferring abiotic stress tolerance. However,

detailed knowledge of signaling networks, regulatory pathways and compre­

hensive functional performance of TFs is extremely important. In addition,

concerted efforts should be focused on the genome-wide identification and

functional characterization of multifunctional TFs genes to raise multiple

stress-resistant crop plants.

Genome-wide identification and analysis has yielded a plethora of

TFs involved in environmental stress tolerance, However, owing to the

complexity of regulating networks among different TFs at different levels

including functional validity, crosstalk, and interactions during abiotic stress

require further targeted research. Deep understanding of functional perspec­

tives about specific TFs, especially their downstream stress-responsive

target genes. This information can potentially provide a better opportunity

for exploration of regulatory networks involved in abiotic stress tolerance in

plants. Taking together, detailed studies will support identifying potential TF

genes and designing strategies for developing stress-tolerant crops. On the

other hand, the availability of high throughput tools has allowed researcher

to generate modified versions of TFs with improved DNA-binding prop­

erties. Furthermore, synthetically tailored TFs could be independent of

upstream regulatory circuits. Generation of new knowledge will also help

us to choose suitable TFs for bioengineering plants with high abiotic stress

tolerance.