Integrative approaches to enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in wheat crop through physiological and molecular strategies

Wheat is one of the world’s most important cereal crops, providing essential calories and nutrients for billions of people and playing a vital role in global food security. Its productivity is increasingly threatened by abiotic stresses, including salinity, drought, heavy metal toxicity, temperature extremes, nutrient deficiencies, and emerging environmental contaminants such as nanoplastics. These stresses disrupt plant growth and development by inducing oxidative damage, impairing photosynthesis, disturbing nutrient and water homeostasis, and altering protein synthesis and cellular metabolism. Wheat plants respond through coordinated physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms involving antioxidant defenses, osmotic adjustment, phytohormone signaling, and stress-responsive gene regulation. Recent advances in molecular breeding, including genome-wide association studies (GWAS), genomic selection, multi-omics approaches, and CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing, have accelerated the discovery of stress-responsive genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for improving abiotic stress tolerance in wheat. Unlike previous reviews that examine physiological and molecular aspects separately, this review addresses the lack of an integrated synthesis connecting physiological traits, molecular mechanisms, and breeding strategies for multiple abiotic stresses in wheat. It further highlights emerging breeding technologies and climate-smart approaches, including genomic selection and CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing, to develop high-yielding, stress-resilient wheat cultivars that support sustainable wheat production under changing environmental conditions.