Transcriptional regulation of salinity stress in plants: A short review

Among various abiotic stresses, salinity is of much concern that arrests the crop productivity. A high concentration of salt in soil may affect plant growth due to ionic and osmotic stresses. After marginal success of conventional breeding approaches to develop a stress tolerant trait, the transgenic approach appears to be a boon to breed stress resistant crops. In this regard, transcription factors (TFs) provide a carrier for genetic engineering due to their unique roles in regulation and modification of different stress-responsive genes. These TFs include various families, like AP2/ERF, bZIP, NAC, MYB and WRKY which exhibit higher correlations with salinity. In this short review, an attempt has been made to highlight the role of TFs in regulating salinity stress in plants.