Role of Proteomics in Crop Stress Tolerance.

Plants often experience various biotic and abiotic stresses during their life cycle. The abiotic stresses include mainly drought, salt, temperature (low/high), flooding and nutritional deficiency/excess which hamper crop growth and yield to a great extent. In view of a projection 50% of the crop loss is attributable to abiotic stresses. However, abiotic stresses cause a myriad of changes in physiological, molecular and biochemical processes operating in plants. It is now widely reported that several proteins respond to these stresses at pre- and post-transcriptional and translational levels. By knowing the role of these stress inducible proteins, it would be easy to comprehensively expound the processes of stress tolerance in plants. The proteomics study offers a new approach to discover proteins and pathways associated with crop physiological and stress responses. Thus, studying the plants at proteomic levels could help understand the pathways involved in stress tolerance. Furthermore, improving the understanding of the identified key metabolic proteins involved in tolerance can be implemented into biotechnological applications, regarding recombinant/transgenic formation. Additionally, the investigation of identified metabolic processes ultimately supports the development of antistress strategies. In this review, we discussed the role of proteomics in crop stress tolerance. We also discussed different abiotic stresses and their effects on plants, particularly with reference to stress-induced expression of proteins, and how proteomics could act as vital biotechnological tools for improving stress tolerance in plants.

Calcium and Potassium Supplementation Enhanced Growth, Osmolyte Secondary Metabolite Production, and Enzymatic Antioxidant Machinery in Cadmium-Exposed Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.).

This work examined the role of exogenously applied calcium (Ca; 50 mM) and potassium (K; 10 mM) (alone and in combination) in alleviating the negative effects of cadmium (Cd; 200 µM) on growth, biochemical attributes, secondary metabolites and yield of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.). Cd stress significantly decreased the length and weight (fresh and dry) of shoot and root and yield attributes in terms of number of pods and seed yield (vs. control). Exhibition of decreases in chlorophyll (Chl) a, Chl b, and total Chl was also observed with Cd-exposure when compared to control. However, Cd-exposure led to an increase in the content of carotenoids. In contrast, the exogenous application of Ca and K individually as well as in combination minimized the extent of Cd-impact on previous traits. C. arietinum seedlings subjected to Cd treatment exhibited increased contents of organic solute (proline, Pro) and total protein; whereas, Ca and K-supplementation further enhanced the Pro and total protein content. Additionally, compared to control, Cd-exposure also caused elevation in the contents of oxidative stress markers (hydrogen peroxidase, H2O2; malondialdehyde, MDA) and in the activity of antioxidant defense enzymes (superoxide dismutase, SOD; catalase, CAT; ascorbate peroxidase, APX; glutathione reductase, GR). Ca, K, and Ca + K supplementation caused further enhancements in the activity of these enzymes but significantly decreased contents of H2O2 and MDA, also that of Cd accumulation in shoot and root. The contents of total phenol, flavonoid and mineral elements (S, Mn, Mg, Ca and K) that were also suppressed in Cd stressed plants in both shoot and root were restored to appreciable levels with Ca- and K-supplementation. However, the combination of Ca + K supplementation was more effective in bringing the positive response as compared to individual effect of Ca and K on Cd-exposed C. arietinum. Overall, this investigation suggests that application of Ca and/or K can efficiently minimize Cd-toxicity and eventually improve health and yield in C. arietinum by the cumulative outcome of the enhanced contents of organic solute, secondary metabolites, mineral elements, and activity of antioxidant defense enzymes.

Nitric Oxide Mitigates Salt Stress by Regulating Levels of Osmolytes and Antioxidant Enzymes in Chickpea.

This work was designed to evaluate whether external application of nitric oxide (NO) in the form of its donor S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) could mitigate the deleterious effects of NaCl stress on chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) plants. SNAP (50 µM) was applied to chickpea plants grown under non-saline and saline conditions (50 and 100 mM NaCl). Salt stress inhibited growth and biomass yield, leaf relative water content (LRWC) and chlorophyll content of chickpea plants. High salinity increased electrolyte leakage, carotenoid content and the levels of osmolytes (proline, glycine betaine, soluble proteins and soluble sugars), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and malondialdehyde (MDA), as well as the activities of antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase in chickpea plants. Expression of the representative SOD, CAT and APX genes examined was also up-regulated in chickpea plants by salt stress. On the other hand, exogenous application of NO to salinized plants enhanced the growth parameters, LRWC, photosynthetic pigment production and levels of osmolytes, as well as the activities of examined antioxidant enzymes which is correlated with up-regulation of the examined SOD, CAT and APX genes, in comparison with plants treated with NaCl only. Furthermore, electrolyte leakage, H2O2 and MDA contents showed decline in salt-stressed plants supplemented with NO as compared with those in NaCl-treated plants alone. Thus, the exogenous application of NO protected chickpea plants against salt stress-induced oxidative damage by enhancing the biosyntheses of antioxidant enzymes, thereby improving plant growth under saline stress. Taken together, our results demonstrate that NO has capability to mitigate the adverse effects of high salinity on chickpea plants by improving LRWC, photosynthetic pigment biosyntheses, osmolyte accumulation and antioxidative defense system.

Impacts of Priming with Silicon on the Growth and Tolerance of Maize Plants to Alkaline Stress.

Silicon (Si) has been known to augment plant defense against biotic and abiotic pressures. Maize (Zea maize L.) is classified as a Si accumulator and is relatively susceptible to alkaline stress. In this study, seeds of maize were grown in pots and exposed to various concentrations of Na2CO3 (0, 25, 50, and 75 mM) with or without 1.5 mM Si in the form of sodium metasilicate Na2O3Si.5H2O for 25 days. Alkaline-stressed plants showed a decrease in growth parameters, leaf relative water content (LRWC), and the contents of photosynthetic pigments, soluble sugars, total phenols and potassium ion (K(+)), as well as potassium/sodium ion (K(+)/Na(+)) ratio. By contrast, alkaline stress increased the contents of soluble proteins, total free amino acids, proline, Na(+) and malondialdehyde (MDA), as well as the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and peroxidase (POD) in stressed plants. On the other hand, application of Si by seed-priming improved growth of stressed plants, which was accompanied by the enhancement in LRWC, and levels of photosynthetic pigments, soluble sugars, soluble proteins, total free amino acids and K(+), as well as activities of SOD, CAT, and POD enzymes. Furthermore, Si supplement resulted in a decrease in the contents of proline, MDA and Na(+), which together with enhanced K(+) level led to a favorable adjustment of K(+)/Na(+) ratio, in stressed plants relative to plants treated with alkaline stress alone. Taken together, these results indicate that Si plays a pivotal role in alleviating the negative effects of alkaline stress on maize growth by improving water status, enhancing photosynthetic pigments, accumulating osmoprotectants rather than proline, activating the antioxidant machinery, and maintaining the balance of K(+)/Na(+) ratio. Thus, our findings demonstrate that seed-priming with Si is an efficient strategy that can be used to boost tolerance of maize plants to alkaline stress.