Review
Chemical Priming of Plants Against Multiple Abiotic Stresses: Mission Possible?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2015.11.003Get rights and content

Trends

Plant priming using chemical agents such as sodium nitroprusside, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydrosulfide, melatonin, and polyamines enhances plant tolerance to different abiotic stresses, improving cellular homeostasis and plant growth under stress conditions.

Commonly employed chemical priming agents share components in their modes of action.

When used against different abiotic stresses, the modes of action of a chemical agent show similarities but also distinct specificities.

Chemical priming through using selected chemical agents is a promising tool against various individual or combined abiotic stresses.

The efficiency of chemical priming depends highly on the mode of application.

Crop plants are subjected to multiple abiotic stresses during their lifespan that greatly reduce productivity and threaten global food security. Recent research suggests that plants can be primed by chemical compounds to better tolerate different abiotic stresses. Chemical priming is a promising field in plant stress physiology and crop stress management. We review here promising chemical agents such as sodium nitroprusside, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydrosulfide, melatonin, and polyamines that can potentially confer enhanced tolerance when plants are exposed to multiple abiotic stresses. The challenges and opportunities of chemical priming are addressed, with the aim to boost future research towards effective application in crop stress management.

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

References (106)

  • A. Diaz-Espejo

    The effect of strobilurins on leaf gas exchange, water use efficiency and ABA content in grapevine under field conditions

    J. Plant Physiol.

    (2012)
  • C. Antoniou

    P77: Exploring the potential of NOSH-aspirin as a plant priming agent against abiotic stress factors

    Nitric Oxide

    (2014)
  • A. Wahid

    Pretreatment of seed with H2O2 improves salt tolerance of wheat seedlings by alleviation of oxidative damage and expression of stress proteins

    J. Plant Physiol.

    (2007)
  • X. Hu

    Effect of exogenous spermidine on polyamine content and metabolism in tomato exposed to salinity–alkalinity mixed stress

    Plant Physiol. Biochem.

    (2012)
  • V. Demidchik

    Mechanisms of oxidative stress in plants: From classical chemistry to cell biology

    Environ. Exp. Bot.

    (2015)
  • S.S. Gill et al.

    Reactive oxygen species and antioxidant machinery in abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants

    Plant Physiol. Biochem.

    (2010)
  • A. Christou

    Systemic mitigation of salt stress by hydrogen peroxide and sodium nitroprusside in strawberry plants via transcriptional regulation of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants

    Environ. Exp. Bot.

    (2014)
  • C. Zheng

    Exogenous nitric oxide improves seed germination in wheat against mitochondrial oxidative damage induced by high salinity

    Environ. Exp. Bot.

    (2009)
  • Y. Ishibashi

    Hydrogen peroxide spraying alleviates drought stress in soybean plants

    J. Plant Physiol.

    (2011)
  • M. Seki

    Regulatory metabolic networks in drought stress responses

    Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.

    (2007)
  • A. Uchida

    Effects of hydrogen peroxide and nitric oxide on both salt and heat stress tolerance in rice

    Plant Sci.

    (2002)
  • J. Sun

    Hydrogen sulfide alleviates cadmium toxicity through regulations of cadmium transport across the plasma and vacuolar membranes in Populus euphratica cells

    Plant Physiol. Biochem.

    (2013)
  • W. Tan

    Photosynthesis is improved by exogenous calcium in heat-stressed tobacco plants

    J. Plant Physiol.

    (2011)
  • Y. Gao

    Hydrogen peroxide pretreatment alters the activity of antioxidant enzymes and protects chloroplast ultrastructure in heat-stressed cucumber leaves

    Sci. Horticulturae

    (2010)
  • Y. Xu

    Protective effect of nitric oxide on light-induced oxidative damage in leaves of tall fescue

    J. Plant Physiol.

    (2010)
  • V. Pastor

    Primed plants do not forget

    Environ. Exp. Bot.

    (2013)
  • W. Wang

    Role of plant heat-shock proteins and molecular chaperones in the abiotic stress response

    Trends Plant Sci.

    (2004)
  • P. Filippou

    NO loading: efficiency assessment of five commonly used application methods of sodium nitroprusside in Medicago truncatula plants

    Plant Physiol. Biochem.

    (2012)
  • K. Chen et al.

    Priming memory invokes seed stress-tolerance

    Environ. Exp. Bot.

    (2013)
  • P.C. Nagajyoti

    Heavy metals, occurrence and toxicity for plants: a review

    Environ. Chem. Lett.

    (2010)
  • D.B. Lobell et al.

    Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming

    Environ. Res. Lett.

    (2007)
  • P.P. Reddy

    Impacts of climate change on agriculture

    Climate Resilient Agriculture for Ensuring Food Security

    (2015)
  • E. Silva

    Contrasting physiological responses of Jatropha curcas plants to single and combined stresses of salinity and heat

    J. Plant Growth Regul.

    (2013)
  • J.A. Perdomo

    Effects of long-term individual and combined water and temperature stress on the growth of rice, wheat and maize: relationship with morphological and physiological acclimation

    Physiologia Plantarum

    (2014)
  • F-Y. Zhao

    Different responses of plant growth and antioxidant system to the combination of cadmium and heat stress in transgenic and non-transgenic rice

    J. Integr. Plant Biol.

    (2009)
  • N. Suzuki

    Abiotic and biotic stress combinations

    New Phytol.

    (2014)
  • P. Filippou

    Plant acclimation to environmental stress using priming agents

  • E. Sani

    Hyperosmotic priming of Arabidopsis seedlings establishes a long-term somatic memory accompanied by specific changes of the epigenome

    Genome Biol.

    (2013)
  • H. Ellouzi

    Drought and cadmium may be as effective as salinity in conferring subsequent salt stress tolerance in Cakile maritima

    Planta

    (2013)
  • X-Z. Fu

    Exogenous spermine pretreatment confers tolerance to combined high-temperature and drought stress in vitro in trifoliate orange seedlings via modulation of antioxidative capacity and expression of stress-related genes

    Biotechnol. Biotechnol. Equip.

    (2014)
  • X.R. Tian et al.

    Physiological responses of wheat seedlings to drought and UV-B radiation. Effect of exogenous sodium nitroprusside application

    Russ. J. Plant Physiol.

    (2007)
  • S.D. Paredes

    Phytomelatonin: a review

    J. Exp. Bot.

    (2009)
  • V. Fotopoulos

    Hydrogen sulphide: a versatile tool for the regulation of growth and defence responses in horticultural crops

    J. Horticultural Sci. Biotechnol.

    (2015)
  • T. Li

    Salicylic acid alleviates the adverse effects of salt stress in Torreya grandis cv. merrillii seedlings by activating photosynthesis and enhancing antioxidant systems

    PLoS ONE

    (2014)
  • A. Christou

    Sodium hydrosulfide induces systemic thermotolerance to strawberry plants through transcriptional regulation of heat shock proteins and aquaporin

    BMC Plant Biol.

    (2014)
  • E.C. Casenave et al.

    Hydropriming as a pre-treatment for cotton germination under thermal and water stress conditions

    Seed Sci. Technol.

    (2007)
  • A. Molassiotis et al.

    Oxidative and nitrosative signaling in plants

    Plant Signal. Behav.

    (2011)
  • C.M.C.P. Gouvêa

    NO-releasing substances that induce growth elongation in maize root segments

    Plant Growth Regul.

    (1997)
  • H. Bae

    Exogenous trehalose alters Arabidopsis transcripts involved in cell wall modification, abiotic stress, nitrogen metabolism, and plant defense

    Physiol. Plant.

    (2005)
  • M.C. Parra-Lobato et al.

    Polyamine-induced modulation of genes involved in ethylene biosynthesis and signalling pathways and nitric oxide production during olive mature fruit abscission

    J. Exp. Bot.

    (2011)
  • Cited by (430)

    • Insights into plant salt stress signaling and tolerance

      2024, Journal of Genetics and Genomics
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text