AUTHOR=Mandal Sayanti , Ghorai Mimosa , Anand Uttpal , Samanta Dipu , Kant Nishi , Mishra Tulika , Rahman Md. Habibur , Jha Niraj Kumar , Jha Saurabh Kumar , Lal Milan Kumar , Tiwari Rahul Kumar , Kumar Manoj , Radha , Prasanth Dorairaj Arvind , Mane Abhijit Bhagwan , Gopalakrishnan Abilash Valsala , Biswas Protha , Proćków Jarosław , Dey Abhijit TITLE=RETRACTED: Cytokinin and abiotic stress tolerance -What has been accomplished and the way forward? JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.943025 DOI=10.3389/fgene.2022.943025 ISSN=1664-8021 ABSTRACT=

More than a half-century has passed since it was discovered that phytohormone cytokinin (CK) is essential to drive cytokinesis and proliferation in plant tissue culture. Thereafter, cytokinin has emerged as the primary regulator of the plant cell cycle and numerous developmental processes. Lately, a growing body of evidence suggests that cytokinin has a role in mitigating both abiotic and biotic stress. Cytokinin is essential to defend plants against excessive light exposure and a unique kind of abiotic stress generated by an altered photoperiod. Secondly, cytokinin also exhibits multi-stress resilience under changing environments. Furthermore, cytokinin homeostasis is also affected by several forms of stress. Therefore, the diverse roles of cytokinin in reaction to stress, as well as its interactions with other hormones, are discussed in detail. When it comes to agriculture, understanding the functioning processes of cytokinins under changing environmental conditions can assist in utilizing the phytohormone, to increase productivity. Through this review, we briefly describe the biological role of cytokinin in enhancing the performance of plants growth under abiotic challenges as well as the probable mechanisms underpinning cytokinin-induced stress tolerance. In addition, the article lays forth a strategy for using biotechnological tools to modify genes in the cytokinin pathway to engineer abiotic stress tolerance in plants. The information presented here will assist in better understanding the function of cytokinin in plants and their effective investigation in the cropping system.