A cascade of recently discovered molecular mechanisms involved in abiotic stress tolerance of plants.

Today, agriculture is facing a tremendous threat from the climate change menace. As human survival is dependent on a constant supply of food from plants as the primary producers, we must aware of the underlying molecular mechanisms that plants have acquired as a result of molecular evolution to cope this rapidly changing environment. This understanding will help us in designing programs aimed at developing crop plant cultivars best suited to our needs of a sustainable agriculture. The field of systems biology is rapidly progressing, and new insight is coming out about the molecular mechanisms involved in abiotic stress tolerance. There is a cascade of changes in transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome of plants during these stress responses. We have tried to cover most pronounced recent developments in the field of "omics" related to abiotic stress tolerance of plants. These changes are very coordinated, and often there is crosstalk between different components of stress tolerance. The functions of various molecular entities are becoming more clear and being associated with more precise biological phenomenon.