Potassium: a vital nutrient mediating stress tolerance in plants

Nutrients have been known to affect stress conditions, in fact, nutrient deprivations are stress conditions for plants itself. Likewise, three important nutrients Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) mediates major stress responses in plants. Here, involvement of K has been discussed briefly in plant stress response along with its impact on plant development. K has been regarded as immensely important nutrient in agriculture, hence, its deficiency triggers various signaling cascades, finally enabling plants to activate stress adaptation responses. So far, K + has been reported to play pivotal role in various abiotic stresses such as drought, cold, water stresses etc. However, the exact mechanism and interplay of these different abiotic stress regulation by K + is not completely explored and demand further functional investigations. The in-depth understanding of components involved in K + sensing, transport, and homeostasis will enable plant biologist to engineer crop varieties tolerant to abiotic stresses and nutrient deficient soil in near future.