Dehydrins: an overview of current approaches and advancement

Abstract

Since plants are exposed to diverse environmental stresses in their natural area, numerous reviews have demonstrated many aspects of dehydrins (DHNs), including structural and functional dynamics, and multiple roles such as membrane protection, cryoprotection of enzymes, chaperone feature, and protection from reactive oxygen species. In this review, we have focused on new information, and other promising and emerging topics of DHNs in plants. This review outlines particularly the potential regulatory mechanisms of DHNs associated with stress tolerance and the role of DHNs in morphological responses of the plants exposed to environmental stresses. Besides the discussion of the signaling pathways involved in DHN expression under abiotic stress, novel aspects about the effect of DHN transcript or the protein accumulation on the tolerance to the stress factors are also presented in transgenic and non-transgenic plants. We hope that this review will help us better understand the role of these impressive proteins in plant stress response mechanisms.