Open Access

REVIEW

Mechanism of tobacco osmotin gene in plant responses to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance: A brief history

HAKIM MANGHWAR^1,#,*, AMJAD HUSSAIN^2,#

1 State Key Laboratory of Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China
2 National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

* Corresponding Author: HAKIM MANGHWAR. Email:
# These authors contributed equally to this work

BIOCELL 2022, 46(3), 623-632. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2022.017316

Received 01 May 2021; Accepted 23 June 2021; Issue published 18 November 2021

Abstract

Plants are recurrently exposed to myriads of biotic and abiotic stresses leading to several biochemical and physiological variations that cause severe impacts on plant growth and survival. To overcome these challenges, plants activate two primary defense mechanisms, such as structural response (cell wall strengthening and waxy epidermal cuticle development) and metabolic changes, including the synthesis of anti-microbial compounds and proteins, especially the pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins. PR proteins are members of a super large family of defense proteins that exhibit antimicrobial activities. Their over-expression in plants provides tolerance to many abiotic and biotic stresses. PR proteins have been classified into 17 families, including PR-5–also called thaumatin-like proteins (TLPs) that involve osmotin and osmotin-like proteins (OLPs). Osmotin was first identified in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum var. Wisconsin 38), and then its homolog proteins (OLPs) were reported from the whole plant kingdom. Osmotin and OLPs are ubiquitous in all fruits and vegetables. Their expression has been detected in various plant tissues and organs. The phylogenetic tree studies revealed that the osmotin group originated from spermatophytes. Moreover, the atomic structure of OLP has shown similarity to thaumatin and TLPs from monocot and eudicot species, which determines a strong evolutionary pressure in flowering plants for conserving thaumatin fold. This is associated with the role of these proteins against pathogens as defense molecules and to induce stress tolerance to plants against several biotic and abiotic factors. In this review, we have briefly described the development history of osmotin, including its function and mechanism to induce biotic and abiotic stress tolerance to plants.

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