Abstract: Expression of different stress-induced genes in plant is mainly regulated by specific transcription factors at the transcriptional level. Transcription factor, also called trans-acting factor, interacts with cis-acting promoter elements. Transcription factors were grouped into different families according to the type of DNA-binding domain that they encode. In this review four families of transcription factors that were related to stress-tolerance (bZIP, WRKY, AP2/EREBP and MYB), and their applications in plant stress-tolerant genetic engineering were discussed.