Melatonin-Induced Protection Against Plant Abiotic Stress: Mechanisms and Prospects

Muhammad Umair Hassan; Athar Mahmood; Masood Iqbal Awan; Rizwan Maqbool; Muhammad Aamer; Haifa A S Alhaithloul; Guoqin Huang; Milan Skalicky; Marian Brestic; Saurabh Pandey; Ayman El Sabagh; Sameer H Qari

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.902694

Melatonin-Induced Protection Against Plant Abiotic Stress: Mechanisms and Prospects

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Jun 9:13:902694. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.902694. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Muhammad Umair Hassan¹, Athar Mahmood², Masood Iqbal Awan³, Rizwan Maqbool², Muhammad Aamer^{1

3}, Haifa A S Alhaithloul⁴, Guoqin Huang¹, Milan Skalicky⁵, Marian Brestic^{5

6}, Saurabh Pandey⁷, Ayman El Sabagh^{8

9}, Sameer H Qari¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Research Center on Ecological Sciences, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.
² Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
³ Department of Agronomy, Sub-Campus Depalpur, Okara, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁴ Biology Department, Collage of Science, Jouf University, Sakaka, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Botany and Plant Physiology, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food, and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czechia.
⁶ Department of Plant Physiology, Slovak University of Agriculture, Nitra, Slovakia.
⁷ Department of Agriculture, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India.
⁸ Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr El-Sheikh, Egypt.
⁹ Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Siirt University, Siirt, Turkey.
¹⁰ Department of Biology, Al-Jumum University College, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Global warming in this century increases incidences of various abiotic stresses restricting plant growth and productivity and posing a severe threat to global food production and security. The plant produces different osmolytes and hormones to combat the harmful effects of these abiotic stresses. Melatonin (MT) is a plant hormone that possesses excellent properties to improve plant performance under different abiotic stresses. It is associated with improved physiological and molecular processes linked with seed germination, growth and development, photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and plant defence against other abiotic stresses. In parallel, MT also increased the accumulation of multiple osmolytes, sugars and endogenous hormones (auxin, gibberellic acid, and cytokinins) to mediate resistance to stress. Stress condition in plants often produces reactive oxygen species. MT has excellent antioxidant properties and substantially scavenges reactive oxygen species by increasing the activity of enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants under stress conditions. Moreover, the upregulation of stress-responsive and antioxidant enzyme genes makes it an excellent stress-inducing molecule. However, MT produced in plants is not sufficient to induce stress tolerance. Therefore, the development of transgenic plants with improved MT biosynthesis could be a promising approach to enhancing stress tolerance. This review, therefore, focuses on the possible role of MT in the induction of various abiotic stresses in plants. We further discussed MT biosynthesis and the critical role of MT as a potential antioxidant for improving abiotic stress tolerance. In addition, we also addressed MT biosynthesis and shed light on future research directions. Therefore, this review would help readers learn more about MT in a changing environment and provide new suggestions on how this knowledge could be used to develop stress tolerance.

Keywords: ROS; abiotic stress; anti-oxidant defence; genes regulation; growth; melatonin; signalling crosstalk.

Publication types

Review