Salt Adaptation Mechanisms of Halophytes: Improvement of Salt Tolerance in Crop Plants

Abstract

Soil salinity is one of the most serious environmental factors that affect crop productivity worldwide. Inevitable global climate change leading to rise in sea water level would exacerbate degradation of irrigation systems and contamination of ground water resources, which render conventional agricultural practices impossible due to the sensitivity of most crops to salinity. Breeding for development of salt-tolerant crop plants has been a major challenge due to the complexity and multigenic control of salt tolerance traits. Halophytes are capable of surviving and thriving under salt at concentrations as high as 5 g/L, by maintaining negative water potential. Physiological and molecular studies have suggested that halophytes, unlike glycophytes, have evolved mechanisms, such as ion homeostasis through ion extrusion and compartmentalization, osmotic adjustments, and antioxidant production for adaptation to salinity. Employment of integrated approaches involving different omics tools would amplify our understanding of the biology of stress response networks in the halophytes. Translation of the knowledge and resources generated from halophyte relatives of crop plants through functional genomics will lead to the development of new breeds of crops that are suitable for saline agriculture.

An actin‐depolymerizing factor from the halophyte smooth cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora (SaADF2), is superior to its rice homolog (OsADF2) in conferring drought and salt tolerance when constitutively overexpressed in rice

“…Genomewide transcriptome analysis of SaADF2-OE vis-avis OsADF2-OE and WT RNA-Seq libraries were prepared from unstressed (control) and 3 and 7 DAS WT, SaADF2-OE and OsADF2-OE in three biological replicates and sequenced in an Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform with 150-cycle paired-end as described in Bedre et al (2015). A total of 706 904 570 sequence reads (70.69 Gbp) were generated that corresponded to 623.83X coverage of the transcriptome (raw reads deposited in NCBI SRA database, Acc.…”

“…A perennial grass halophyte, Spartina alterniflora (Loisel) (smooth cordgrass), is reported to grow in salinity ranging from 5 to 32 psu, that is double the strength of marine water (Baisakh et al, 2008). Along with P. coarctata, S. alterniflora was proposed to be a model halophyte grass for monocotyledonous crops (Joshi et al, 2015;Subudhi and Baisakh, 2011). Bioprospecting of S. alterniflora genes has been reported to improve salinity and drought stress resistance when overexpressed in model plant Arabidopsis and rice (Baisakh et al, 2012;Joshi et al, 2013Joshi et al, , 2014.…”

Bazi Kültür Bi̇tki̇leri̇nde Artan Tuz Toleransina Moleküler Ve Bi̇yoteknoloji̇k Yaklaşimlar

“…Research Arabidopsis and rice have been essential for plants to cope with salt stress in different crops [99]. A number of genes ( [152]. Higher accumulation of NA + was related to salt sensitivty of plants by the studies of some researchers [153].…”

Comparative Transcriptome Analysis of Halophyte Zoysia macrostachya in Response to Salinity Stress

“…To avoid damages resulting from ROS, higher plants have developed a complex ROS scavenging system [4,5]. ROS scavenging system efficiency is crucial for cell resistance to ROS-mediated injury [6][7][8]. The activities of antioxidant enzymes were increased by NaCl in many plants [4,[9][10][11][12].…”