Metabolomics is now considered a wide-ranging, sensitive and practical approach to acquire useful information on the composition of a metabolite pool present in any organism, including plants. Investigating metabolomic regulation in plants is essential to understand their adaptation, acclimation and defense responses to environmental stresses through the production of numerous metabolites. Moreover, metabolomics can be easily applied for the phenotyping of plants; and thus, it has great potential to be used in genome editing programs to develop superior next-generation crops. This review describes the recent analytical tools and techniques available to study plants metabolome, along with their significance of sample preparation using targeted and non-targeted methods. Advanced analytical tools, like gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography mass-spectroscopy (LC-MS), capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS), fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance-mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI), ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) have speed up precise metabolic profiling in plants. Further, we provide a complete overview of bioinformatics tools and plant metabolome database that can be utilized to advance our knowledge to plant biology.
A salt- and drought-responsive novel gene SbSDR1 is predominantly localised to the nucleus, up-regulated under abiotic stresses and is involved in the regulation of metabolic processes. SbSDR1 showed DNA-binding activity to genomic DNA, microarray analysis revealed the upregulation of host stress-responsive genes and the results suggest that SbSDR1 acts as a transcription factor. Overexpression of SbSDR1 did not affect the growth and yield of transgenic plants in non-stress conditions. Moreover, the overexpression of SbSDR1 stimulates the growth of plants and enhances their physiological status by modulating the physiology and inhibiting the accumulation of reactive oxygen species under salt and osmotic stress. Transgenic plants that overexpressed SbSDR1 had a higher relative water content, membrane integrity and concentration of proline and total soluble sugars, whereas they showed less electrolyte leakage and lipid peroxidation than wild type plants under stress conditions. In field conditions, SbSDR1 plants recovered from stress-induced injuries and could complete their life cycle. This study suggests that SbSDR1 functions as a molecular switch and contributes to salt and osmotic tolerance at different growth stages. Overall, SbSDR1 is a potential candidate to be used for engineering salt and drought tolerance in crops without adverse effects on growth and yield.
A novel Salicornia
brachiata
Salt Inducible (SbSI-1) gene was isolated and overexpressed in tobacco for in planta functional validation subjected to drought and salt stress. SbSI-1 is a nuclear protein. The transgenic tobacco overexpressing SbSI-1 gene exhibited better seed germination, growth performances, pigment contents, cell viability, starch accumulation, and tolerance index under drought and salt stress. Overexpression of SbSI-1 gene alleviated the build-up of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and curtailed the ROS-induced oxidative damages thus improved the physiological health of transgenic tobacco under stressed conditions. The higher activities of antioxidant enzymes, lower accumulation of ROS, higher membrane stability, relative water content, and polyphenol contents indicated the better survival of the transgenic tobacco than wild-type (WT) tobacco under stressed conditions. Transgenic tobacco had a higher net photosynthetic rate, PSII operating efficiency, and performance index under drought and salt stress. Higher accumulation of compatible solutes and K+/Na+ ratio in transgenic tobacco than WT showed the better osmotic and redox homeostasis under stressed conditions. The up-regulation of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes (NtSOD, NtAPX, and NtCAT) and transcription factors (NtDREB2 and NtAP2) in transgenic tobacco under stressed conditions showed the role of SbSI-1 in ROS alleviation and involvement of this gene in abiotic stress tolerance. Multivariate data analysis exhibited statistical distinction among growth responses, physiological health, osmotic adjustment, and photosynthetic responses of WT and transgenic tobacco under stressed conditions. The overexpression of SbSI-1 gene curtailed the ROS-induced oxidative damages and maintained the osmotic homeostasis under stress conditions thus improved physiological health and photosynthetic efficiencies of the transgenic tobacco overexpressing SbSI-1 gene.
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