Abiotic stress conditions such as drought, high salinity and extreme
temperatures have adverse effects on the growth and production of
land plants. To survive, grow and reproduce in environments that
fluctuate annually and diurnally, land plants have evolved complicated
systems that regulate adaptation in response to stress signals. Many
aspects of adaptation processes, which include developmental,
physiological and biochemical changes, are regulated by stressresponsive
gene expression. Transcription factors play central roles
in gene expression by regulating expression of downstream genes
as trans-acting elements via specific binding to cis-acting elements
in the promoters of target genes. From analyses of stress-responsive