Modern agriculture is facing twin challenge of ensuring global food security and executing it in a sustainable manner. However, the rapidly expanding salinity stress in cultivable areas poses a major peril to crop yield. Among various biotechnological techniques being used to reduce the negative effects of salinity, the use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) is considered to be an efficient approach for bio-amelioration of salinity stress. AMF deploy an array of biochemical and physiological mechanisms that act in a concerted manner to provide more salinity tolerance to the host plant. Some of the well-known mechanisms include improved nutrient uptake and maintenance of ionic homeostasis, superior water use efficiency and osmoprotection, enhanced photosynthetic efficiency, preservation of cell ultrastructure, and reinforced antioxidant metabolism. Molecular studies in past one decade have further elucidated the processes involved in amelioration of salt stress in mycorrhizal plants. The participating AMF induce expression of genes involved in Na+ extrusion to the soil solution, K+ acquisition (by phloem loading and unloading) and release into the xylem, therefore maintaining favorable Na+ : K+ ratio. Colonization by AMF differentially affects expression of plasma membrane and tonoplast aquaporins (PIPs and TIPs), which consequently improves water status of the plant. Formation of AM (arbuscular mycorrhiza) surges the capacity of plant to mend photosystem-II (PSII) and boosts quantum efficiency of PSII under salt stress conditions by mounting the transcript levels of chloroplast genes encoding antenna proteins involved in transfer of excitation energy. Furthermore, AM-induced interplay of phytohormones, including strigolactones, abscisic acid, giberellic acid, salicylic acid, and jasmonic acid have also been associated with the salt tolerance mechanism. This review comprehensively covers major research advances on physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms implicated in AM-induced salt stress tolerance in plants. The review identifies the challenges involved in the application of AM in alleviation of salt stress in plants in order to improve crop productivity.

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Mitigation of Salinity Stress in Plants by Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis: Current Understanding and New Challenges

Soil salinity poses a serious threat to agriculture productivity throughout the world. Studying mechanisms of salinity tolerance in halophytic plants will provide valuable information for engineering plants for enhanced salt tolerance. Monocotyledonous Puccinellia tenuiflora is a halophytic species that widely distributed in the saline-alkali soil of the Songnen plain in northeastern China. Here we investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying moderate salt tolerance of P. tenuiflora using a combined physiological and proteomic approach. The changes in biomass, inorganic ion content, osmolytes, photosynthesis, defense-related enzyme activities, and metabolites in the course of salt treatment were analyzed in the leaves. Comparative proteomic analysis revealed 107 identities (representing 93 unique proteins) differentially expressed in P. tenuiflora leaves under saline conditions. These proteins were mainly involved in photosynthesis, stress and defense, carbohydrate and energy metabolism, protein metabolism, signaling, membrane, and transport. Our results showed that reduction of photosynthesis under salt treatment was attributed to the down-regulation of the light-harvesting complex (LHC) and Calvin cycle enzymes. Selective uptake of inorganic ions, high K(+)/Na(+) ratio, Ca(2+) concentration changes, and an accumulation of osmolytes contributed to ion balance and osmotic adjustment in leaf cells. Importantly, P. tenuiflora plants developed diverse reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging mechanisms in their leaves to cope with moderate salinity, including enhancement of the photorespiration pathway and thermal dissipation, synthesis of the low-molecular-weight antioxidant α-tocopherol, and an accumulation of compatible solutes. This study provides important information toward improving salt tolerance of cereals.

Physiological and proteomic analysis of salinity tolerance in Puccinellia tenuiflora.

Bauxite residue issues: IV. Old obstacles and new pathways for in situ residue bioremediation

Current advances in the investigation of leaf rolling caused by biotic and abiotic stress factors

A pot experiment was conducted to examine the effect of the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus, Glomus mosseae, on plant biomass and organic solute accumulation in maize leaves. Maize plants were grown in sand and soil mixture with three NaCl levels (0, 0.5, and 1.0 g kg−1 dry substrate) for 55 days, after 15 days of establishment under non-saline conditions. At all salinity levels, mycorrhizal plants had higher biomass and higher accumulation of organic solutes in leaves, which were dominated by soluble sugars, reducing sugars, soluble protein, and organic acids in both mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal plants. The relative abundance of free amino acids and proline in total organic solutes was lower in mycorrhizal than in non-mycorrhizal plants, while that of reducing sugars was higher. In addition, the AM symbiosis raised the concentrations of soluble sugars, reducing sugars, soluble protein, total organic acids, oxalic acid, fumaric acid, acetic acid, malic acid, and citric acid and decreased the concentrations of total free amino acids, proline, formic acid, and succinic acid in maize leaves. In mycorrhizal plants, the dominant organic acid was oxalic acid, while in non-mycorrhizal plants, the dominant organic acid was succinic acid. All the results presented here indicate that the accumulation of organic solutes in leaves is a specific physiological response of maize plants to the AM symbiosis, which could mitigate the negative impact of soil salinity on plant productivity.

Influence of arbuscular mycorrhiza on organic solutes in maize leaves under salt stress

Eight-week-old seedlings of Puccinellia tenuiflora were stressed by exposure to 1: 1 molar ratio mixtures either of the two neutral salts NaCl and Na 2 SO 4 or of the two alkali salts, NaHCO 3 and Na 2 CO 3 . To identify the physiological mechanisms involved in this plant's resistance to alkali stress, the relative growth rates, the quantities and compositions of organic acids accumulated and secreted through the roots into the rhyzosphere, the concentrations of inorganic ions, proline and other solutes accumulating in the shoots were measured. The results show that the organic acid constituents in the shoots and roots were much the same. These were predominantly malic acid, oxalic acid, citric acid and succinic acid. The total concentration of organic acids in the shoots increased strongly with increasing alkali stress. However, these either did not increase or they decreased slightly with increasing salt stress. Of the four organic acids, the concentration difference between salt- and alkali-stressed plants was most striking for citric acid. This became the dominant organic acid component under alkali stress. Results show that proline is the main organic osmolyte, whereas the contribution of betaine to osmotic adjustment is insignificant under either salt or alkali stress. The main organic acid accumulated was not only an important organic osmotic regulator, but also an important negative charge contributor, playing important roles in ionic balance and pH adjustment. The concentrations of Na + , K + , Cl - and of organic acid were 80.7% of all solutes under salt stress. The concentrations of Na + , K + , Cl - and of organic acid were 85.4% of all solutes under alkali stresses. The ionic balance was disrupted by the strong increase in Na + content under alkali stress. This perhaps explains why large amounts of the organic acids were accumulated. The organic acid concentration in the roots was lower than in the shoots. The roots secreted citric acid into the rhyzosphere only under alkali stress, secretion of the other organic acids was not detected. Therefore, citric acid secreted from the roots probably plays an important role in pH adjustment in the rhyzosphere of P. tenuiflora.

The Key Physiological Response to Alkali Stress by the Alkali-Resistant Halophyte Puccinellia tenuiflora is the Accumulation of Large Quantities of Organic Acids and into the Rhyzosphere

D. C. Shi

Papers

The Key Physiological Response to Alkali Stress by the Alkali-Resistant Halophyte Puccinellia tenuiflora is the Accumulation of Large Quantities of Organic Acids and into the Rhyzosphere