Role of Small GTPases and its Interacting Molecules in Abiotic Stress Tolerance of Legumes

Grain legumes play a major role in nutritional security, comprising of economically significant food and fodder crops. Being cultivated in marginal lands during lean season, the productivity of these crops is being affected by varying abiotic and biotic stress conditions. Legumes are sensitive crops to abiotic stress conditions. To overcome stress conditions, crops need major adaptive mechanisms which are highly specific to the species. Legumes are having their own mechanism of changing their plant stature, anatomical structures, cytoplasmic streaming, pH flux and stress signalling where myosins and rabGTPases, were found to play a major role. These adaptations arise out of signal perception and response by the plants. Stress signals are sensed by plants and transduced to activate downstream targets through intricate signaling network and crosstalk, in which transcription factors and signal-transducing GTPases play key roles. There is increasing evidence demonstrating that small GTPase proteins are involved in mediation of numerous physiological processes, ranging from pollen growth and root hair development in response to abiotic stress. Diverse functions of plant small GTPases under different conditions were detailed in this manuscript. This further will help in exploitation of genetic variation among these smaller proteins which could facilitate in identifying tolerant germplasm resources.