How does proteomics target plant environmental stresses in a semi-arid area?

Southwest Asia, in most parts, is recognized as arid and semi-arid ecosystems (For instance around 90% in Iran). Abiotic stresses, especially salt and drought, are main stresses in this region that limit the crop yields. Furthermore, the level of soil salinization is increasing. Therefore, many researchers are focusing on these two stresses. Specifically, in Iran, the use of plant proteomics dates back to more than a decade. During these years, many researchers employed this powerful technique to elucidate molecular basis of plant response to cope with environmental stresses and to apply related mechanisms to generate stress-tolerant varieties. PlantPRes (www.proteome.ir) which is a database for Plant Proteome Response to stress has been recently established. In this review, we discuss the work which has been done by plant proteomics researchers and their corresponding publications to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying drought-, salt-, heat-, cold- and biotic-tolerance in plants followed by a whole data integration to depict a detailed picture of upregulated or downregulated cellular functions for important goal of generating more resilient cultivars appropriate for semi-arid climate.