Salt Stress and Plant Molecular Responses

Abstract

Plants being sessile suffer from several abiotic stresses during growth. These include drought, salinity, heavy metal, temperature, and nutrient stress. Salt stress is one of the devastating abiotic stresses that plant suffers under natural growth conditions. It is more common in arid regions due to excessive evaporation, which causes the accumulation of inorganic salts disrupting the plant metabolism. It also triggers the influence of drought stress, as plants are unable to absorb water. Additionally, it also causes oxidative stress in plant tissues. Thereby, plant adaptation to salt stress, rely on signals and pathways that help plant in establishing cellular ionic and osmotic homeostasis. Stress-responsive transcription factors play crucial roles in the regulation of gene expression in responses to salt stress. Moreover, genome editing has gained much attention for the engineering of traits for the better adaptation of plants to salt stress. This chapter elucidated the plant\'s physio-biochemical responses and molecular mechanisms to salt stress.

Formation of Solonchak in the Area of the Discharged Ancient Brine Wells (Perm Krai, Russia)

“…Salinization negatively affects plant biochemical and physiological processes such as photosynthesis, stomatal activity, neutralization of reactive oxygen species, enzyme activity, and plant height and weight (Tavakkoli et al, 2010;Khudyaev and Banaev, 2012;Ivanishchev, 2019;Yin et al, 2021). Salt stress in plants suppresses the formation of proteins and increases the breakdown of already formed protein complexes (Vargas et al, 2017;Ivanishchev, 2019;Chaudhry et al, 2022). A decrease in protein synthesis shows itself in a noticeable decrease in growth and development rates of plants and disruption of metabolic processes.…”

“…A decrease in protein synthesis shows itself in a noticeable decrease in growth and development rates of plants and disruption of metabolic processes. An increase in the degree of salinity leads to disruption of homeostatic water balance (Ivanishchev, 2019;Chaudhry et al, 2022). Numerous studies have shown that toxicity occurs at lower concentrations in the case of chloride salinity than in the case of sulfate salinity (Khudyaev and Banaev, 2012).…”

Post-Translational Modifications in Histones and Their Role in Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

“…Plants often experience unfavorable environmental conditions in growing habitats. Depending on the stress response, plants can retain information for a time after a previous stress (known as stress memory), so they can adapt more quickly to the same adversity in the future [19]. Epigenetic regulation is closely associated with the development of stress memories [19][20][21].…”

“…Depending on the stress response, plants can retain information for a time after a previous stress (known as stress memory), so they can adapt more quickly to the same adversity in the future [19]. Epigenetic regulation is closely associated with the development of stress memories [19][20][21]. Research showed that stress treatment can alter the chromatin status of genes that respond to stress, and these changes persist after recovery and even in progeny [22][23][24].…”