Abstract
Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.) is a Mediterranean crop, member of the Asteraceae family, characterized by high production of biomass and secondary metabolites and by a good adaptation to climate change, usable in green chemistry, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical sectors. Recent studies demonstrated the ability of cardoon to grow up in a stressful environment, which is associated with enhanced biosynthesis of biologically active compounds in these plants, and this effect is increased by abiotic stresses (salt, heat, pollution, and drought stress) that characterize many world marginal areas, affected by the climate changes. The plant response to these stresses consists in implementing different processes that modify some plant biological functions, such as alleviating both cellular hyperosmolarity and ion disequilibrium or synthesizing antioxidant molecules. The aim of this work was to investigate different cardoon response mechanisms to abiotic stresses and to evaluate their influence on the biologically active compounds biosynthesis. Following this purpose, we analyzed the ability of cardoon seeds to germinate under different salt stress conditions, and on the sprouts obtained, we measured the total phenol content and the antioxidant activity. Moreover, the growth of cardoon seedlings grown under heavy metals stress conditions was monitored, and the expression levels of heavy metal transport–associated genes were analyzed. The results showed the ability of cardoon plants to tolerate abiotic stress, thanks to different defense mechanisms and the possibility to obtain biomass with high content of biologically active molecules by exploiting the natural tolerance of this species for abiotic stresses. Moreover, we identified some important genes encoding for metal transportation that may be involved in arsenic and cadmium uptake and translocation in C. cardunculus. Then, this species can be considered as a promising crop for green chemistry and energy in marginal lands.
Highlights
The climate, over the centuries, has always changed because of natural processes, but in the last 100 years, these changes have been much more severe and much faster than the changes that occurred in the past.Climate change caused an increase in unfavorable or stressful environment
(147.5 g) recorded for sprouts not subjected to saline treatment was reduced linearly as the salt concentration increased from 60 mM NaCl (138.5 g) to 120 mM (133.0 g) (Figure 1)
We observed that salt stress did not reveal any significant effects on germination of domestic cardoon, while it linearly limited the development of fresh sprout biomass with the increase in NaCl concentrations
Summary
The climate, over the centuries, has always changed because of natural processes, but in the last 100 years, these changes have been much more severe and much faster than the changes that occurred in the past.Climate change caused an increase in unfavorable or stressful environment. The presence of heavy metals during seedling growth and plant establishment stage causes morphological abnormalities leading to yield reduction (Amari et al, 2017) Both these stresses give rise to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) compounds, such as O2, H2O2, and OH− (Mittler, 2002), which damage membranes and macromolecules. One of these is the accumulation of compatible solutes in their organs in response to osmotic stress; the primary function of these solutes is to maintain cell turgor and the driving gradient for water uptake (Gupta and Goyal, 2017) Another strategy is the production of antioxidant compounds (ROS scavengers), such as polyphenols, which improve the antioxidant defense and can increase tolerance to different stress factors (Cushman and Bohnert, 2000)
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