Abstract
The ongoing unpredictability of climate changes is exponentially exerting a negative impact on crop production, further aggravating detrimental abiotic stress effects. Several research studies have been focused on the genetic modification of crop plants to achieve more crop resilience against such stress factors; however, there has been a paradigm shift in modern agriculture focusing on more organic, eco-friendly and long-lasting systems to improve crop yield. As such, extensive research into the use of microbial and nonmicrobial biostimulants has been at the core of agricultural studies to improve crop growth and development, as well as to attain tolerance against several biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the biostimulant activity remain enigmatic. Thus, this study is a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based untargeted metabolomics approach to unravel the hypothetical biochemical framework underlying effects of a nonmicrobial biostimulant (a silicon-based formulation) on tomato plants (Solanum lycopersium) under salinity stress conditions. This metabolomics study postulates that Si-based biostimulants could alleviate salinity stress in tomato plants through modulation of the primary metabolism involving changes in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, fatty acid and numerous amino acid biosynthesis pathways, with further reprogramming of several secondary metabolism pathways such as the phenylpropanoid pathway, flavonoid biosynthesis pathways including flavone and flavanol biosynthesis. Thus, the postulated hypothetical framework, describing biostimulant-induced metabolic events in tomato plants, provides actionable knowledge necessary for industries and farmers to, confidently and innovatively, explore, design, and fully implement Si-based formulations and strategies into agronomic practices for sustainable agriculture and food production.
Highlights
IntroductionSalt stress affects multiple vital processes of plants, leading to several modifications in the physiological and metabolic processes, both of which are dependent on the duration and severity of the stress
Hydromethanolic extracts of biostimulant-treated and tomato leaves were analysed on a reversed phase liquid chromatography coupled to a high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-electrospray ionisation (ESI)-QTOF-MS) system
The MS/MS spectra are putatively annotated against reference spectra within the global natural product social molecular networking (GNPS) infrastructure [30,33]
Summary
Salt stress affects multiple vital processes of plants, leading to several modifications in the physiological and metabolic processes, both of which are dependent on the duration and severity of the stress. These changes manifest in two salt stress-induced phases: the earlier phase (osmotic stress) and the late phase (ionic stress) [3]. In addition to nuances in the basis of salt tolerance in plants, some of the key cellular and molecular events that fundamentally define the plant responses to salinity stress include ion homeostasis, signalling (reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO), Ca2+ , hormones), and metabolic remodelling [5,6]. Plants eliminate excess salt ions actively via either transportation into the vacuole or seclusion into other parts of the plant which are eventually sacrificed to protect the plant from stress
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