Temperature response of plants and heat tolerance in Rice: A review

Global climate change has led to the frequent occurrence of extreme weather, in which extreme high temperature has increasingly become one of the main limiting factors affecting plant growth. High temperature causes stunted plant growth or even death, which seriously threatens agriculture, especially the production of grain crops such as rice. With the rise of global population, the demand for food continues to expand. If effective ways or methods cannot be developed to deal with the frequent high temperature stress, global food security will face a huge threat. This review introduced the main pathways and response mechanisms for plants to perceive changes in external temperature, and discussed the main pathways and regulatory mechanisms for plants to maintain their own growth under heat stress, in order to provided possible improvement hints for the development of heat-tolerant plants, especially food crops. Considering the impact of high temperature on agricultural production, we particularly focused on rice, an important food crop and model plant, reviewed the latest research progress in improving rice heat tolerance, and provided a review of multiple physiological and biochemical pathways that affect rice heat tolerance, including heat tolerance genes, transcription factors, and regulatory proteins. Finally, we introduced the current situation of breeding heat-tolerant rice and developing related germplasms, and how to use molecular means to assist the development of heat-tolerant rice in the near future.