[Molecular response of plant to drought stress].

Drought stress is a bottleneck factor for plant growth and development. Synthesis and accumulation of osmoprotectants, up-regulation of gene expression implicated in repair of desiccation injury, free radical-scavenging enzymes and late-embryogenesis-abundant(LEA) protein could increase the drought tolerance of plant. There are at least for pathways of signal transduction in plant subjected to drought stress, two are abscisic acid(ABA)-dependent, and two are ABA-independent. In the signal transduction of plants encountered drought stress, two-component His protein kinase could act as an osmosensor, and Ca2+ and inositol triphosphate(IP3) could be the second messenger for dehydration signaling. Transgenic plant is an excellent system in evaluating function of encoded protein.