Desiccation tolerance: avoiding cellular damage during drying and rehydration

Authors: Oliver, Melvin; FARRANT, JILL - University Of Cape Town; HILHORST, HENK - Wageningen University; MUNDREE, SAGADEVAN - Queensland University Of Technology; WILLIAMS, BRETT - Queensland University Of Technology; BEWLEY, DEREK - University Of Guelph

Submitted to: Annual Review of Plant Biology
Publication Type: Literature Review
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/18/2019
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: No interpretive summary required.

Technical Abstract: Desiccation of plants is often lethal but is tolerated by the majority of seeds and by vegetative tissues of only a small number of land plants. Desiccation tolerance is an ancient trait, lost from vegetative tissues following the appearance of trachids but reappearing in several lineages when selection pressures favored its evolution. Cells of all desiccation-tolerant plants and seeds must possess a core set of mechanisms to protect them from desiccation- and rehydration-induced damage. The review explores how desiccation generates cell damage and how tolerant cells assuage the complex array of mechanical, structural, metabolic, and chemical stresses and survive; likewise the stress of rehydration requires appropriate mitigating cellular responses. We also explore what comparative genomics, both structural and responsive, have added to our understanding of cellular protection mechanisms induced by desiccation, and how vegetative desiccation tolerance circumvents destructive stress-induced cell senescence.