TY  - EJOU
AU  - Lamsaadi, Nadia 
AU  - Maarouf, Oumaima 
AU  - Lahmaoui, Soukaina 
AU  - Msaad, Hamid 
AU  - Farssi, Omar 
AU  - Hamim, Chaima 
AU  - Tamoudjout, Mohamed 
AU  - Hirt, Hafsa 
AU  - Kamal, Habiba 
AU  - Hassni, Majida El 
AU  - Ghoulam, Cherki 
AU  - Moukhtari, Ahmed El 
AU  - Farissi, Mohamed 

TI  - Key Plant Transcription Factors in Crop Tolerance to Abiotic Stresses
T2  - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany

PY  - 2025
VL  - 94
IS  - 11
SN  - 1851-5657

AB  - Abiotic stresses, such as drought, heavy metals, salinity, and extreme temperatures, are among the most common adverse threats that restrict the use of land for agriculture and limit crop growth and productivity. As sessile organisms, plants defend themselves from abiotic stresses by developing various tolerance mechanisms. These mechanisms are governed by several biochemical traits. The biochemical mechanisms are the products of key genes that express under specific conditions. Interestingly, the expression of these genes is regulated by specialized proteins known as transcription factors (TFs). Several TFs, including those from the bZIP, bHLH, MYB, HSF, WRKY, DREB, and DOF families, play critical roles in regulating plant growth, development, and responses to environmental changes. By binding to specific DNA sequences, TFs can act as molecular switches to repress or activate the transcription of targeted genes. Moreover, some TF genes have been engineered to strengthencrop resilience to multiple abiotic stresses. Identifying and manipulating TFs is an interesting research area that could aid in improving crop abiotic stress tolerance. This review describs the harmful effects of salinity, drought, temperature and heavy metals on plant growth and development. We also provide an updated discussion on how TFs regulate and activate the plant tolerance under different abiotic constraints. Our aim is to extend understanding of how abiotic stresses affect the physiological characteristics of plants and how TFs alleviate these deleterious effects on plant growth and productivity.
KW  - Crop tolerance; drought; freezing; gene regulation; heat; heavy metals; salinity; transcription factors

DO  - 10.32604/phyton.2025.072311