Phytohormones Mediated Modulation of Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Potential Crosstalk in Horticultural Crops

The current status of changing climate has become a significant threat to the global production of horticultural crops. Phytohormones play a crucial role in providing a sophisticated mechanism to circumvent stress at different morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular levels. Phytohormone mediates the abiotic stress-responsive signalling pathway and modulates other cell wall repair mechanisms, pH regulations, root hair formation, ionic homeostasis, chlorophyll content, synthesis, and leaf morphology. Auxin, cytokinin, ethylene, strigolactones, brassinosteroid, salicylic acid, abscisic acid, jasmonic acid, and other phytohormones have also had other phytohormones recently been discovered to play a vital role in the production of abiotic stress-tolerant crops. Moreover, recently discovered phytohormone-like plant growth regulators such as polyamines, sugars, neurotransmitters, and strigolactones are an effective strategy to mitigate biotic and abiotic stress. Recent studies revealed the role of different phytohormone-like plant growth regulators and network signalling pathway that targets transcription factors and stress-related genes. Understanding the complex phytohormonal crosstalk in horticultural crops under various abiotic stress conditions will advance the knowledge about the synergistic/antagonistic role of developing stress-tolerant cultivars. Review on modulation of plant growth and development process by regulation of gene expression mediated by different phytohormones in horticultural crops is elusive. In this context, our review focusses on the role of phytohormone-like plant growth regulators and associated crosstalk among each other in plant growth and development under abiotic stress condition.