Salt Stress and Plant Molecular Responses

Plants being sessile suffer from several abiotic stresses during growth. These include drought, salinity, heavy metal, temperature, and nutrient stress. Salt stress is one of the devastating abiotic stresses that plant suffers under natural growth conditions. It is more common in arid regions due to excessive evaporation, which causes the accumulation of inorganic salts disrupting the plant metabolism. It also triggers the influence of drought stress, as plants are unable to absorb water. Additionally, it also causes oxidative stress in plant tissues. Thereby, plant adaptation to salt stress, rely on signals and pathways that help plant in establishing cellular ionic and osmotic homeostasis. Stress-responsive transcription factors play crucial roles in the regulation of gene expression in responses to salt stress. Moreover, genome editing has gained much attention for the engineering of traits for the better adaptation of plants to salt stress. This chapter elucidated the plant\'s physio-biochemical responses and molecular mechanisms to salt stress.