Regulatory network of rice in response to heat stress and its potential application in breeding strategy

The rapid development of global industrialization has led to serious environmental problems, among which global warming has become one of the major concerns. The gradual rise in global temperature resulted in the loss of food production, and hence a serious threat to world food security. Rice is the main crop for approximately half of the world's population, and its geographic distribution, yield, and quality are frequently reduced due to elevated temperature stress, and breeding rice varieties with tolerance to heat stress is of immense significance. Therefore, it is critical to study the molecular mechanism of rice in response to heat stress. In the last decades, large amounts of studies have been conducted focusing on rice heat stress response. Valuable information has been obtained, which not only sheds light on the regulatory network underlying this physiological process but also provides some candidate genes for improved heat tolerance breeding in rice. In this review, we summarized the studies in this field. Hopefully, it will provide some new insights into the mechanisms of rice under high temperature stress and clues for future engineering breeding of improved heat tolerance rice.