ABSTRACT
The sessile habit of plants does not provide choices to escape the environmental constraints, leading to negative impacts on their growth and development. This causes significant losses in the agriculture sector and raises serious issues on global food security. Extreme temperatures (high or low) influence several aspects of plant life and can cause reproduction malfunction. Therefore, a strategy for temperature amelioration is necessary for the management of agricultural productivity. Supplementation with various chemicals (e.g. phytohormones, gasotransmitters, osmolytes) is considered a good choice to manage plant stress. Gasotransmitters are well-recognized for stress mitigation in plants, among which hydrogen sulphide (H2 S) has proved promising to alleviate stress. Temperature (heat/cold) stress can stimulate the endogenous production of H2 S in plants, and many studies have reported the significance of H2 S for temperature stress amelioration. Here, H2 S led to positive changes in plant physiological, biochemical and molecular responses, which are usually compromised during stress. Further, H2 S also coordinate with other signalling components that act either upstream or downstream during stress mitigation. This review focuses on the significance of H2 S for mitigation of temperature stress, with a comprehensive discussion on cross-talk with other signalling components or supplements (e.g. NO, H2 O2 , salicylic acid, trehalose, proline). Finally, the review provides a rational assessment and holistic understanding of H2 S-mediated mitigation of extreme temperature stress and addresses the prospects for development of an effective strategy to manage temperature stress.
