The plant hormone strigolactones (SLs) play crucial roles in regulating plant development and adaptations to abiotic stresses. Even though the functional roles of SLs have been identified in response to abiotic stresses, the function, and mechanism of SLs are not fully established under alkaline stress. In this study, we identified that exogenous SL could improve alkaline tolerance of soybean seedlings, especially when treated with 0.5 μM SL. The application of SL remarkably reduced the malondialdehyde content, hydrogen peroxide content, and increased the activity of antioxidant enzymes under alkaline stress, suggesting that SL improved the alkaline tolerance by regulating the antioxidant defense capacity. The RNA sequencing data showed 530 special differentially expressed genes under SL treatment and alkaline stress, mainly were associated with antioxidant processes and phenylpropanoid biosynthetic pathway. Some transcription factors were also induced by SL under alkaline stress as confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Furthermore, SL largely increased the Na content in leaves and decreased Na content in roots under alkaline stress, which suggested that SL might promote the transport of Na from the roots to the leaves of the soybean seedlings. Meanwhile, exogenous SL decreased the content of other elements such as K, Mg, Fe, and Cu in leaves or roots under alkaline stress. Collectively, our results suggested a role of SL in regulating antioxidant defense capacity, specific gene expression, and alterations in ionic contents to alleviate harmful effects of alkaline stress in soybean seedlings.
| INTRODUCTIONAlkaline stress is an adverse obstacle in the growth and development of plants and severely affects the production of agricultural crops. Compared with neutral salt stress, alkaline stress affects plant cells mainly by osmotic stress, ion injury and, especially, due to high pH. Alkaline stress disturbs the balance of organic acids and reactive oxygen species, photosynthetic rate, and N metabolism (Karuppanapandian et al., 2011;Yang et al., 2009). Alkaline stress with high pH leads to the precipitation of most phosphate and metal ions, which in turn decreases the availability of nutrients for plants (Guo et al., 2015). Some studies have supported that alkaline stress imposes a more serious damages to crops than salt stress due to its complex mechanism of action (Guo et al., 2017;Yang et al., 2007). Thus, understanding the basic mechanisms of plant responses to alkaline stress is essential for improving the alkaline tolerance of crops.Soybean (Glycine max) has been adopted as one of the world's most important seed legumes. Unlike other cereal crops, soybean seeds are a highly valuable source of edible oil and protein (Ravi et al., 2019). In addition, the content of micronutrients and isoflavones increases its nutritive