Plant abiotic stress signaling

Stress signaling is central to plants, which-as immobile organisms-have to endure environmental fluctuations that constantly interfere with vigorous growth. As a result, plant-specific, elaborate mechanisms have evolved to perceive and respond to stress conditions. Currently, these stress responses are plausibly being revealed to involve crosstalk with energy signaling pathways as any growth-limiting factor alters the plant's energy status. Among these, autophagy, conventionally regarded as the mechanism whereby plants recycle and remobilize nutrients in bulk, has frequently been associated with stress responses. However, as a result of recent findings, autophagy has attained a novel role in stress signaling. In this review, major elements of abiotic stress signaling are summarized along with the autophagy pathway, and in the light of recent discoveries, a putative, state-of-the-art role of autophagy is discussed.