Blum Abraham
Funct Plant Biol. 2011 Oct;38(10):753-757. doi: 10.1071/FP11101.
Drought resistance is being increasingly labelled as being a 'complex trait', especially with the recent expansion of research into its genomics. There is a danger that this label may turn into an axiom that is liable to damage education on the subject as well as research and the delivery of solutions to the farmer. This opinionated review examines whether there is grounds for such an axiom. Drought resistance is labelled as a 'complex trait' mainly when viewed by molecular biologists from the gene discovery platform. This platform is capable of expressing hundreds and thousands of drought-responsive genes, which are up- or down-regulated under dehydration stress according to growth stage, plant organ or even time of day. Sorting out the 'grain out of the chaff' in order to identify the function of the candidate genes towards drought resistance is difficult and, thus, the idea that drought resistance is complex is raised. However, when drought resistance is viewed from the physiological and agronomic whole-plant and crop platform, it appears much simpler; its control, whether constitutive or adaptive, is rather obvious with respect to manipulation in breeding and crop management. The most important and common drought resistance traits function to maintain plant hydration under drought stress due to effective use of water (EUW). The state of our knowledge and the achievements in breeding for drought resistance do not support labelling drought resistance as a complex trait. The genomics road towards drought resistance is complex but we already know that the destination is much simpler.
抗旱性越来越多地被标记为一种“复杂性状”，尤其是随着近期对其基因组学研究的扩展。有一种风险是，这个标签可能会变成一个公理，容易损害该主题的教育以及研究和为农民提供解决方案。这篇有倾向性的综述探讨了是否有理由支持这样一个公理。抗旱性主要是当分子生物学家从基因发现平台的角度来看时被标记为“复杂性状”。这个平台能够表达成百上千个干旱响应基因，这些基因在脱水胁迫下根据生长阶段、植物器官甚至一天中的时间而被上调或下调。为了确定候选基因对抗旱性的功能而“去伪存真”是困难的，因此，就产生了抗旱性是复杂的这一观点。然而，当从生理和农艺的全株及作物平台来看抗旱性时，它似乎要简单得多；其控制，无论是组成型的还是适应性的，在育种和作物管理中的操作方面都相当明显。最重要且常见的抗旱性状通过有效利用水分（EUW）在干旱胁迫下维持植物的水分含量。我们目前的知识状况和抗旱育种的成果并不支持将抗旱性标记为复杂性状。通向抗旱性的基因组学道路是复杂的，但我们已经知道目的地要简单得多。
