Trends in Plant Science
ReviewChemical Priming of Plants Against Multiple Abiotic Stresses: Mission Possible?
Section snippets
Exploring and Exploiting a Physiological Phenomenon
Abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, flooding, heat, cold, freezing, excess light, UV radiation, and heavy metal toxicity have a significant impact on plant growth and crop yield worldwide. Anthropogenic contributions due to industrialization and urbanization [1] and climate change [2] continue to exacerbate the detrimental effects of these stresses on crop yield, thereby threatening global food security [3]. Plants grown under field conditions may well be exposed during their lifespan
Promising Chemicals for Enhancing Multi-Stress Tolerance
Many types of molecules have the potential to act under specific conditions as a priming agent against a range of different abiotic stresses [14]. A review of the relevant literature reveals a vast range, including amino acids (e.g., proline [17]), hormones (e.g., salicylic acid [18]), reactive oxygen–nitrogen–sulfur species (RONSS 19, 20), and even water (i.e., hydropriming [21]). Some of these agents are effective in inducing plant tolerance to various individually applied abiotic stresses
Promising Chemicals: Assessment of Common Components of the Mode of Action of Agents
Plants pretreated at different developmental stages (e.g., as germinating seed, or in the vegetative or reproductive stage) with SNP (NO donor), H2O2, NaHS (H2S donor), Mel, or PAs show enhanced systemic acquired tolerance, and exposure to various abiotic stresses has less impact on their physiology and growth than on non-pretreated plants (Table S1 and Figure 1). The mode of action of these compounds as priming agents remains unclear; however, the evidence regarding common tolerance activation
Challenges and Opportunities
Recent research has revealed challenges as well as opportunities for the employment of chemical priming as a useful tool in plant stress physiology and as a technology applicable in crop stress management. Chemical agents can be effective at very low concentrations, which would suggest low costs of application, but can be deleterious at higher concentrations 40, 83, 85, 86, 87. For example, NO and H2S have inhibiting effects on the mitochondrial electron transport chain when applied at high
Concluding Remarks and Future Perspectives
The action of chemical compounds such as NO, H2O2, H2S, Mel, and PAs as abiotic stress signaling molecules and as effective chemical priming agents against different abiotic stresses has previously been established. However, few studies have tested these chemical agents against combined abiotic stresses. Known aspects of the mode of action of these chemical agents suggest strongly that chemical priming can potentially be used against multiple abiotic stress phenomena that occur in the field;
Acknowledgments
The support of Cyprus University of Technology (V.F.) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (M.T.) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors would like to thank Dr Christina Morris for professional editing of this manuscript.
Glossary
- Hardening
- or cold hardening, the process whereby exposure to low but non-lethal temperatures increases plant tolerance (or the capacity to survive) to subsequent low or freezing temperatures that would be fatal without the hardening treatment.
- Heat-shock proteins (HSPs)
- molecular chaperones that play a role in preventing protein aggregation by assisting refolding, import, and translocation, and are involved in signal transduction and transcriptional activation [96].
- Melatonin (N
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