Abstract: Drought stress is one of the major limitations to plant growth and development. In order to adapt to drought stress, responsive mechanism wolud be activated upon characteristic. The paper reviewed the reaserch progress of a series of mechanisms at the morphological, physiological, biochemical, cellular, and molecular levels to overcome water deficit or drought stress conditions. The paper also put forward prospect for the reaserch on the relationship between genetic and molecular mechanisms and drought resistance, which was expected to provided suggestions for futher research on stress resistance and genetic breeding.

Key words: drought stress, responsive mechanism, molecular response

摘要： 干旱胁迫是抑制植物生长发育的主要限制因子之一，植物为适应干旱的外界环境，会依据自身的习性启动响应机制。从植物外部形态、生理代谢、生化过程、细胞及分子水平的变化阐述了植物对干旱胁迫的响应机制，详细阐述了生理及分子水平的响应机制，并对分子和遗传水平的响应机制和植物抗旱性关系的未来研究方向提出了展望，以期为植物抗逆性及遗传育种研究提供参考。

关键词: 干旱胁迫, 植物响应机制, 分子响应