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Aquaporin and its effect on foliar uptake to overcome drought stress in plants

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Abstract

Aquaporins (AQPs) are the membrane water channel proteins present in all organisms. Plants have the highest amount and the largest variety of aquaporin homologs with diverse subcellular localization patterns, solute specificity, and gating properties. As aquaporins regulate plant water relations, they are alleged to play a pivotal role in the defense response of plants against biotic and abiotic stress. In particular, aquaporins play a crucial role in defense response against drought stress. Plants in arid and semi-arid regions which are severely affected by drought, overcome this by absorbing water from external sources besides precipitation such as fog, dew and cloud mist through leaves by a process known as foliar water uptake. Studies had shown aquaporin's role in foliar water uptake, which regulates the transpiration rate and hydraulic conductivity in plants. However, the molecular mechanisms behind it are still up in the air. The current review emphasizes on the aquaporins and relation to foliar water uptake through its regulatory role of water status in plants under stress. Also this review underlines the functions of aquaporin genes in stomatal regulation, transpiration and its response to drought stress.

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Acknowledgements

We greatly acknowledge the Department of Genetic Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology.

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  1. Department of Genetic Engineering, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu, India

    Mahendran R. Vignesh & Senthilkumar Palanisamy

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  1. Mahendran R. Vignesh
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VMR performed all the experiments, PS designed and supervised the complete work.

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Correspondence to Senthilkumar Palanisamy.

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Vignesh, M.R., Palanisamy, S. Aquaporin and its effect on foliar uptake to overcome drought stress in plants. Plant Physiol. Rep. 26, 193–199 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40502-021-00567-3

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