Abstract:

Plant mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are involved in growth, development and responses to endogenous and environmental cues, which link stimuli that are activated by external sensors to cellular responses. In Arabidopsis, as a model, all of MAP kinase genes have been listed and classified. Based on the Arabidopsis MAPK families, a number of MAP kinase genes in other plant species have been recently isolated and classified. Most of the cloned MAPK genes can be activated by a variety of stress stimuli including pathogen infection, wounding, temperature, drought, salinity, osmolarity, UV irradiation, ozone and reactive oxygen species. Some tools and strategies are used to investigate their functions and signal pathways under different environmental stress, indicating complexity and crosstalk of plant MAP kinase signaling pathways. It is still necessary to explore more novel tools and strategies to clarify MAPK signaling pathways, and how to apply the MAPK cascade to improve the resistance of crop to abiotic and biotic stress.

Key words: environmental stress, hormone, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), signal transduction