PROGRESS IN THE STUDY OF ABIOTIC STRESS-RELATED ZINC FINGER PROTEIN GENES IN PLANTS

Plants can adapt to a variety of stress conditions mainly by changing their gene expression and metabolic pathways.It will be of great significance to study the expression and functions of the genes conferring plants tolerance to abiotic stresses.Zinc finger proteins are an important class of transcription factors with finger domains that are composed of zinc ions and several cysteines and(or) histidines.Zinc ion not only maintains the stability of zinc finger structure,but also is essential for the regulatory role of zinc finger proteins,which are essential in plants for stress tolerance.In this paper the recent research progresses of abiotic stress-related zinc finger protein genes obtained from Arabidopsis thaliana,rice,wheat,tomato and other plants were reviewed.The tissue expressional pattern of the genes as well as the stress response and tolerance properties of the transgenic plants are focused.The results indicated that the zinc finger proteins could regulate stress-related gene expression and played an important role in plant metabolic pathways under stresses.Therefore,crop species with high tolerance to abiotic stresses can be obtained by genetic engineering of zinc finger protein genes.