Identification of plant genes for abiotic stress resistance

As water and salt stresses occur frequently and can affect many habitats, plants have developed several strategies to cope with these challenges: either adaptation mechanisms, which allow them to survive the adverse conditions, or specific growth habits to avoid stress conditions. Stress-tolerant plants have evolved certain adaptive mechanisms to display different degrees of tolerance, which are largely determined by genetic plasticity. Differential stress tolerance could be attributed to differences in plant reactivity in terms of stress perception, signal transduction and appropriate gene expression programs, or novel metabolic pathways that are restricted to tolerant plants. The hypothesis that the genetic program for tolerance is at least to some extent also present. ABA is an important phytohormone and plays a critical role in response to various stress signals. The application of ABA to plants mimics the effect of a stress condition