MYB transcription factors: Acting as molecular switches to regulate different signaling pathways to modulate plant responses to drought stress

Abstract

Drought represents a significant impediment to plant growth, as it restricts essential physiological activities such as respiration, photosynthesis, and stomatal movement. These limitations ultimately influence the growth, development, and metabolic activity of plants. To deal with water scarcity, plants activate a range of mechanisms designed to enhance their resilience to drought conditions. These include morphological and structural adaptations, the expression of genes that confer drought resistance, and the synthesis of hormones and osmoregulators. The net effect of these processes is to mitigate of adverse effects of drought on the plants. As a larger family of transcription factors (TFs), MYB TFs are widely involved in the regulation of stress response and plant antagonism. In this review, we summarized that MYB TFs act as a molecular switch to regulate plant responses to drought stress through hormone signaling pathways, antioxidant enzyme systems, osmotic regulators, and plant morphological changes. This includes the synthesis, catabolism, transporter, and signaling of related substances, to comprehensively and thoroughly elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in regulating the response of plants to drought stress by MYB. This review aims to familiarize readers with the current progress of MYB TFs involvement in drought research and to provide theoretical references for plant drought-related research. Furthermore, it offers insights into the field of plant molecular breeding.