Department of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology, University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Cell Mol Life Sci. 2012 Oct;69(19):3175-86. doi: 10.1007/s00018-012-1088-0. Epub 2012 Jul 26.
Resurrection plants are a small but diverse group of land plants characterized by their tolerance to extreme drought or desiccation. They have the unique ability to survive months to years without water, lose most of the free water in their vegetative tissues, fall into anabiosis, and, upon rewatering, quickly regain normal activity. Thus, they are fundamentally different from other drought-surviving plants such as succulents or ephemerals, which cope with drought by maintaining higher steady state water potential or via a short life cycle, respectively. This review describes the unique physiological and molecular adaptations of resurrection plants enabling them to withstand long periods of desiccation. The recent transcriptome analysis of Craterostigma plantagineum and Haberlea rhodopensis under drought, desiccation, and subsequent rehydration revealed common genetic pathways with other desiccation-tolerant species as well as unique genes that might contribute to the outstanding desiccation tolerance of the two resurrection species. While some of the molecular responses appear to be common for both drought stress and desiccation, resurrection plants also possess genes that are highly induced or repressed during desiccation with no apparent sequence homologies to genes of other species. Thus, resurrection plants are potential sources for gene discovery. Further proteome and metabolome analyses of the resurrection plants contributed to a better understanding of molecular mechanisms that are involved in surviving severe water loss. Understanding the cellular mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in this unique group of plants may enable future molecular improvement of drought tolerance in crop plants.
复苏植物是一类小型但多样化的陆生植物，其特征是对极端干旱或脱水的耐受性。它们具有独特的能力，可以在没有水的情况下存活数月甚至数年，在失去大部分自由水后，进入休眠状态，一旦重新浇水，就会迅速恢复正常活动。因此，它们与其他耐旱植物（如肉质植物或短命植物）有根本的不同，后者通过保持较高的稳态水势或通过较短的生命周期来应对干旱。本综述描述了复苏植物独特的生理和分子适应机制，使它们能够耐受长时间的脱水。最近对 Craterostigma plantagineum 和 Haberlea rhodopensis 在干旱、脱水和随后的再水合条件下的转录组分析，揭示了与其他耐旱物种共同的遗传途径，以及可能有助于这两个复苏物种出色耐旱性的独特基因。虽然一些分子反应似乎对干旱胁迫和脱水都是共同的，但复苏植物在脱水过程中还具有高度诱导或抑制的基因，这些基因与其他物种的基因没有明显的序列同源性。因此，复苏植物是基因发现的潜在来源。对复苏植物的进一步蛋白质组和代谢组分析有助于更好地理解参与严重水分损失的分子机制。了解这一独特植物群体中对脱水耐受性的细胞机制，可能有助于未来提高作物的耐旱性。
