Exogenous Sodium Nitroprusside Mitigates Salt Stress in Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) by Affecting the Growth, Yield, and Biochemical Properties.

Tauqeer Ahmad Yasir,Subhan Danish,Ayman El Sabagh,Muhammad Ishaq Asif Rehmani,Milan Skalicky,Marian Brestic,Mohammad Sohidul Islam,Mudassir Aziz,Khuram Mubeen,Allah Wasaya,Muhammad Aamir Iqbal,Naeem Sarwar,Ayesha Khan,Fahmy A S Hassan,Mohamed M Hassan

doi:10.3390/molecules26092576

Abstract

Soil salinity disrupts the physiological and biochemical processes of crop plants and ultimately leads to compromising future food security. Sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a contributor to nitric oxide (NO), holds the potential to alleviate abiotic stress effects and boost tolerance in plants, whereas less information is available on its role in salt-stressed lentils. We examined the effect of exogenously applied SNP on salt-stressed lentil plants by monitoring plant growth and yield-related attributes, biochemistry of enzymes (superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and peroxidase (POD)) amassing of leaf malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Salinity stress was induced by NaCl application at concentrations of 50 mM (moderate salinity) and 100 mM (severe salinity), while it was alleviated by SNP application at concentrations of 50 µM and 100 µM. Salinity stress severely inhibited the length of roots and shoots, the relative water content, and the chlorophyll content of the leaves, the number of branches, pods, seeds, seed yield, and biomass per plant. In addition, MDA, H2O2 as well as SOD, CAT, and POD activities were increased with increasing salinity levels. Plants supplemented with SNP (100 µM) showed a significant improvement in the growth- and yield-contributing parameters, especially in plants grown under moderate salinity (50 mM NaCl). Essentially, the application of 100 µM SNP remained effective to rescue lentil plants under moderate salinity by regulating plant growth and biochemical pathways. Thus, the exogenous application of SNP could be developed as a useful strategy for improving the performance of lentil plants in salinity-prone environments.

Highlights

The emerging scenario of climate change and increasing soil salinity (SS) have become serious bottlenecks in attaining high yields of cereals and legume crops [1]
Our results exhibited that imposed salinity caused considerable damage to the lentil plants by reducing their growth traits like shoot and root length, relative water content, and chlorophyll content of leaf (Table 1)
When comparing T2 with T4 and T6, it was observed that all the parameters showed gradual improvement as the concentration of Sodium nitroprusside (SNP) was raised from 50 μM to 100 μM

Summary

Introduction

The emerging scenario of climate change and increasing soil salinity (SS) have become serious bottlenecks in attaining high yields of cereals and legume crops [1]. SS suppresses plant development and growth by unbalancing the osmotic adjustments and disturbing hormonal interactions [5]. It disrupts the metabolism in plant cells by inducing water inadequacy, oxygen insufficiency, and nutrients unbalance [6,7]. Plants become less dynamic to draw nutrients from the soil and, resultantly, exhibit nutrients deficiency symptoms [8]. If this situation remains unaddressed in the long run, a reduced photosynthetic rate, chlorosis, and necrosis [9]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion