Peptide Hormone with Emphasis on Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

Climate change and weather extremities in the past and present are seen to stress plants and animals. Establishing a response system of abiotic resistance is essential to weaken the impact of these stresses on plants. In a nutshell, the root system, leaf structure, osmotic adjustment, relative water status and stomatal adjustment are considered to be the most crucial traits for crop plants to withstand these abiotic stresses. Similarly, aerenchyma formation and adventitious root system are the traits of root respiration for flooding tolerance. Besides, cell-cell communication networks, signaling peptides that mimic phytohormones regulate several traits of plant developmental processes under abiotic stress. Signaling peptides are typically small peptides of 40–100 amino acids from precursor proteins or directly translated from small open reading frames without proteolytic processing. These peptides normally trigger the activating cellular signaling to regulate plant growth and development when they are identified via receptor-like kinases that are embedded in membranes. Recent research has shown that many signaling peptides are crucial for plants to respond to abiotic stress. In this chapter, we look over the functions and signaling pathways of peptides that help plants respond to abiotic challenges such as heat, drought, salt and reactive oxygen species.