Mechanisms of Plant Responses and Adaptation to Soil Salinity

Chunzhao Zhao; Heng Zhang; Chunpeng Song; Jian-Kang Zhu; Sergey Shabala

doi:10.1016/j.xinn.2020.100017

Mechanisms of Plant Responses and Adaptation to Soil Salinity

Innovation (Camb). 2020 Apr 24;1(1):100017. doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2020.100017. eCollection 2020 May 21.

Authors

Chunzhao Zhao^{1

2}, Heng Zhang³, Chunpeng Song², Jian-Kang Zhu^{1

4}, Sergey Shabala^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology and CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, Center of Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China.
⁴ Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
⁵ International Research Centre for Environmental Membrane Biology, Foshan University, Foshan 528000, China.
⁶ Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7001, Australia.

Abstract

Soil salinity is a major environmental stress that restricts the growth and yield of crops. Understanding the physiological, metabolic, and biochemical responses of plants to salt stress and mining the salt tolerance-associated genetic resource in nature will be extremely important for us to cultivate salt-tolerant crops. In this review, we provide a comprehensive summary of the mechanisms of salt stress responses in plants, including salt stress-triggered physiological responses, oxidative stress, salt stress sensing and signaling pathways, organellar stress, ion homeostasis, hormonal and gene expression regulation, metabolic changes, as well as salt tolerance mechanisms in halophytes. Important questions regarding salt tolerance that need to be addressed in the future are discussed.

Keywords: halophyte; hormones; ion homeostasis; osmotic stress; oxidative stress; salt stress; salt stress sensing.

Publication types

Review