Role of exogenous folic acid in alleviation of morphological and anatomical inhibition on salinity-induced stress in barley

Abstract

Soil salinity is a serious threat to agricultural ecological environment and agriculture sustainability. Ever increasing salinity negatively affects processes such as plant growth and development, ultimately causing diminished economic yield and quality of production, and it might cause a worldwide famine in the future. Thus, helping plants adapt to saline soils and increasing their yield and quality is a must. Our study focused on the enhancing role of exogenously applied folic acid (FA) in mitigation of toxicity caused by salt (NaCl). Barley seeds were pre-treated with 50 mM FA for 24 h and then exposed to salt. Morphological and anatomical changes in seed germination and seedling growth stages were compared between different treatments of salt in laboratory conditions. Adverse effects of salt in both germination and seedling growth stages depended on the concentration of salt treatment (0.0, 0.25, 0.275, 0.30, 0.325 and 0.35 M). It was shown that the application of FA effectively alleviated the salt-induced inhibition, and reduced the negative effects of salt on germination (germination index and vigour index), seedling growth (radicle and coleoptile lengths, fresh weight) and leaf (stomata and epidermis number, stomatal index, stomata sizes of adaxial and abaxial surfaces) parameters. Moreover, FA elevated all examined parameters of barley also under non-stress conditions. Especially, germination and vigour indices were significantly higher than the control. Our results suggest that exogenous FA is involved in the resistance of barley to salt-stress.

Folic Acid Confers Tolerance against Salt Stress-Induced Oxidative Damages in Snap Beans through Regulation Growth, Metabolites, Antioxidant Machinery and Gene Expression

“…In contrast, FA significantly ( p ≤ 0.05) improved plant growth of saline- and non-saline-stressed plants compared to the FA-untreated plants. It is well documented that FA can be involved in the mitigation of the cytotoxic effects of salinity stress [ 44 ], biosynthesis of nucleic acids [ 45 ], and enhancing various morphological and anatomical aspects under salt stress [ 28 ]. In addition, FA regulates many cellular and molecular events that can affect plant growth and development i.e., cell division, genome stability, and gene expression [ 18 , 46 , 47 ].…”

“…Additionally, the strong antioxidant properties of folates can be considered a key factor in elucidating their role in enhancing plant tolerance to diverse abiotic stresses and preventing oxidative damage [ 25 , 26 ]. In this context, exogenous FA has an important role in alleviation the harmful effects of abiotic stresses such as drought [ 24 , 27 ] and salinity [ 28 ].…”

Genome-Wide Association and Prediction of Traits Related to Salt Tolerance in Autotetraploid Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.)

“…Mutation of At2g32040.2 in A. thaliana increased the total chloroplast folate content and decreased the proportion of 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolate [21]. Increased folate levels have been associated with germination and vigor in barley under salt stress [22]. Kılıç and Aca (2016) found that exogenous application of folic acid was involved in mitigation of salt-induced inhibition, and reduced the negative effects of salt on barley germination.…”

The Effects of Foliar Spraying of Folic Acid and Cysteine on Growth, Chemical Composition of Leaves and Green Yield of Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.)

“…The maximum increase was obtained in response to 30 mg.L -1 folic acid. The improvement of Plant growth characters as a result of folic acid foliar spray may be due to the positive role of folic in regulating the synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids (Andrew et al, 2000), increasing cell division and expansion, synthesis of natural hormones and chlorophyll (Jabrin et al, 2003) and increases nutrient uptake (Kilic & Ace, 2016). As well as increasing tolerance against abiotic stress (Poudineh et al, 2015).…”