Grafting enhances plants drought resistance: Current understanding, mechanisms, and future perspectives

Abstract

Drought, one of the most severe and complex abiotic stresses, is increasingly occurring due to global climate change and adversely affects plant growth and yield. Grafting is a proven and effective tool to enhance plant drought resistance ability by regulating their physiological and molecular processes. In this review, we have summarized the current understanding, mechanisms, and perspectives of the drought stress resistance of grafted plants. Plants resist drought through adaptive changes in their root, stem, and leaf morphology and structure, stomatal closure modulation to reduce transpiration, activating osmoregulation, enhancing antioxidant systems, and regulating phytohormones and gene expression changes. Additionally, the mRNAs, miRNAs and peptides crossing the grafted healing sites also confer drought resistance. However, the interaction between phytohormones, establishment of the scion-rootstock communication through genetic materials to enhance drought resistance is becoming a hot research topic. Therefore, our review provides not only physiological evidences for selecting drought-resistant rootstocks or scions, but also a clear understanding of the potential molecular effects to enhance drought resistance using grafted plants.

Integrated transcriptome and DNA methylome analysis reveal the biological base of increased resistance to gray leaf spot and growth inhibition in interspecific grafted tomato scions

“…Previous studies have demonstrated that grafting can effectively improve the environmental adaptability of grafted scions [ 19 , 20 ]. In the present study, interspecific grafting within the Solanaceae family significantly enhances the resistance of tomato scions to gray leaf spot, offering a novel option for safeguarding tomato production beyond traditional breeding strategies.…”

Genetic and Epigenetic Responses of Autochthonous Grapevine Cultivars from the ‘Epirus’ Region of Greece upon Consecutive Drought Stress

“…In the current study, the response to drought conditions of two indigenous grapevine cultivars, Debina and Dichali, from the region of Epirus, was investigated at the level of physiology, gene expression, epigenetic regulation and impact of grafting onto a commercial rootstock ‘Richter 110’. Numerous studies have demonstrated that grafting substantially improves the performance of grapevine cultivars towards drought stress tolerance [ 55 ]. Grapevine is a good model plant to study drought adaptability due to the existence of large variability in drought tolerance across the Vitis species.…”

Short-term water stress responses of grafted pepper plants are associated with changes in the hormonal balance

“…Water relations traits are controlled by hormonal signals from root to shoot and shoot to root. Currently, ABA is the primary hormone that modulates stomatal performance contributing to the regulation of water-mediated stomatal closure and plays a key role in drought resistance ( Holbrook et al., 2002 ; Gaion et al., 2018 ; Yang et al., 2022 ). Under short-term water stress, it has been described that ABA is synthesized mainly in the roots and afterward transported into guard cells to trigger stomata closure in leaves ( Wilkinson and Davies, 2002 ; Allario et al., 2013 ; Sarwat and Tuteja, 2017 ).…”