Integration of Reactive Oxygen Species and Hormone Signaling During Abiotic Stress

Each year, abiotic stress conditions such as drought, heat, salinity, cold and particularly their different combinations, inflict a heavy toll on crop productivity worldwide. The effects of these adverse conditions on plant productivity are becoming ever more alarming in recent years in light of the increased rate and intensity of global climatic changes. Improving crop tolerance to abiotic stress conditions requires a deep understanding of the response of plants to changes in their environment. This response is dependent on early and late signal transduction events that involve important signaling molecules such as reactive oxygen species (ROS), different plant hormones and other signaling molecules. It is the integration of these signaling events, mediated by an interplay between ROS and different plant hormones that orchestrates the plant response to abiotic stress and drive changes in transcriptomic, metabolic and proteomic networks that lead to plant acclimation and survival. Here we review some of the different studies that address hormone and ROS integration during the response of plants to abiotic stress. We further highlight the integration of ROS and hormone signaling during early and late phases of the plant response to abiotic stress, the key role of respiratory burst oxidase homologs in the integration of ROS and hormone signaling during these phases, and the involvement of hormone and ROS in systemic signaling events that lead to systemic acquired acclimation. Lastly, we underscore the need to understand the complex interactions that occur between ROS and different plant hormones during stress combinations.