| dc.description.abstract | Plants serve as a source for sustainable food and biofuel and also play crucial roles in
maintaining human health and ecosystem. Thus, it becomes imperative to understand
the mechanisms of plant growth and development. Plant physiology is that
significant branch of plant science which deals with understanding the process of
functioning of plants at cell, molecular, and whole plant levels and their interaction
with the surrounding environment. In spite of being static in nature, plants can
withstand adverse growth conditions due to a variety of adaptive mechanisms.
Intracellular compartmentalization of biochemical pathways, expression of
membrane-associated transporter proteins specific for various ions and metabolites,
production of secondary metabolites with multiplicity of protective functions, and a
wide variety of photoreceptors biochemically synchronized with various environmental
and developmental conditions are some of the noteworthy adaptive features
of plants enabling them to survive in almost all possible situations. The plethora of
information available today has been made possible through interaction of cell and
molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics to understand plant processes.
Plant physiology is an experimental science. Plant water relation is the first area
of research in plant physiology which caught attention of scientists. Stephen Hales,
also called as the Father of Plant Physiology, published the book Vegetable Staticks
in 1727, highlighting various experimental studies on transpiration and root pressure.
In the beginning of twentieth century, the development of physicochemical and
biochemical techniques further facilitated the understanding of the plant processes.
These techniques include spectral analysis, mass spectrometry, differential centrifugation,
chromatography, electrophoresis, and the use of radioisotopes, besides many
others. In the last two decades, plant physiologists made an extensive use of the
molecular tools and Arabidopsis as a model organism to facilitate learning about the
role of genes and the crosstalk among various biomolecules affecting plant functions
and development. Lately, chemical biology has also contributed significantly
through the use of small molecules to identify intracellular targets, thereby
facilitating development of new herbicides and plant growth regulators. They are
also used to identify novel signaling pathways. Small molecules are used to alter
protein structure and explore the biological roles of target proteins (an area termed as
chemical genetics). Low-molecular mass molecules are used as probes to modify
biological processes. Major areas in plant physiology which have gained a lot of new information include growth and development (both vegetative and reproductive),
physiology of nutrition, metabolism, and plant responses to the environment. | en_US |
