Amaranth Transcription Factors in Response to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses

Amaranth species have inherent tolerance to diverse environmental stresses such as drought, saline soil, extreme temperature, defoliation, pathogens and herbivory attacks. Transcriptomic analysis of the Amaranthus genus has been a powerful tool to identify genes induced in response to biotic and abiotic stress conditions. Various amaranth genes of unknown function and transcription factors (TFs) have been functionally characterized in recent years. TFs are of main interest due to their ability to modulate the expression of several responsive genes, which is a crucial part of the plant response to abiotic and biotic stresses. In this chapter, we identified from different amaranth studies the most promising TFs families in response to biotic and abiotic stresses. Also, we compiled functional studies of amaranth TFs conferring stress tolerance, which are potential candidates to be used in plant engineering to increase stress tolerance in commercial crops.