Systems Biology Perspectives to Distinguish Stress Response and Drought Tolerance to Improve Yield

Understanding the global abiotic stress response is an important stepping stone for the development of universal stress tolerance in plants in the era of climate change. Although co-occurrence of several stress factors (abiotic) in nature is found to be frequent, current attempts are poor to understand the complex physiological processes impacting plant growth under combinatory factors. The recent advances of reverse engineering approaches that led to seminal discoveries of key candi-date regulatory genes involved in cross-talk of abiotic stress responses will be highlighted.  Such interactome networks help not only to derive hypotheses but also play a vital role in identifying key regulatory targets and interconnected hormonal responses. To explore the full potential of gene network inference in the area of abiotic stress tolerance, we need to validate hypotheses by implementing time-dependent gene expression data from genetically engineered plants with modulated expression of target genes. Here, we summarize the current status of plant adaptation mechanisms and the strategies that we need to carve from systems biology strategies in model plants and extrapolating its relevance for cereals in achieving terminal drought tolerance.