Designing salt stress‐resilient crops: Current progress and future challenges

Abstract

Excess soil salinity affects large regions of land and is a major hindrance to crop production worldwide. Therefore, understanding the molecular mechanisms of plant salt tolerance has scientific importance and practical significance. In recent decades, studies have characterized hundreds of genes associated with plant responses to salt stress in different plant species. These studies have substantially advanced our molecular and genetic understanding of salt tolerance in plants and have introduced an era of molecular design breeding of salt‐tolerant crops. This review summarizes our current knowledge of plant salt tolerance, emphasizing advances in elucidating the molecular mechanisms of osmotic stress tolerance, salt ion transport and compartmentalization, oxidative stress tolerance, alkaline stress tolerance, and the trade‐off between growth and salt tolerance. We also examine recent advances in understanding natural variation in the salt tolerance of crops and discuss possible strategies and challenges for designing salt stress–resilient crops. We focus on the model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and the four most‐studied crops: rice (Oryza sativa), wheat (Triticum aestivum), maize (Zea mays), and soybean (Glycine max).This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Weighted gene co-expression network analysis reveals hub genes regulating response to salt stress in peanut

“…Accordingly, 45 Mha out of the total 230 Mha of global irrigated farmland is considered high in soil salinity [ 3 – 5 ]. The increase in acreage of saline farmland is worsened by the combined impacts of global climate change, excessive fertilization, and irrigation [ 6 , 7 ]. This trend is notably pronounced in arid and semiarid regions.…”

“…This trend is notably pronounced in arid and semiarid regions. Many crops such as maize, rice, wheat, soybean, and peanut are glycophytes that tolerate only low salt or mild salt stress [ 6 – 8 ]. The growth of most crops undergoes a significant 25% decline when exposed to a concentration of 50 mmol L −1 NaCl.…”

“…Salt imposes stress to crops through osmotic and ionic pressure. Osmotic stress in root begins immediately upon exposure to a high salt concentration, while ionic stress occurs in leaves upon excessive accumulation of Na + and Cl − [ 6 ]. Plants have evolved intricate pathways to withstand the adverse effects of environmental stress.…”

“…Plants have evolved intricate pathways to withstand the adverse effects of environmental stress. These pathways regulate osmotic and oxidative stresses, transport and compartmentalize salt ions, and manage the trade-off between growth and salt tolerance [ 6 ]. The osmotic signal triggers the accumulation of abscisic acid (ABA), which activates the ABA signaling pathway.…”

TaCHP encoding C1‐domain protein stably enhances wheat yield in saline‐alkaline fields

“…S alt and saline-alkaline stress seriously threaten crop production and food security worldwide (Yang and Guo, 2018). Identifying genes that confer tolerance to these conditions without yield penalty would help mitigate this problem through molecular breeding (Liang et al, 2023;Sahu and Liu, 2023). Although numerous stress-tolerance genes have been identified, their application potential in molecular breeding has rarely been confirmed through multi-year and multi-site field trials.…”