Abstract
Salt stress in plants triggers complex physiological responses that are genotype specific. Many of these responses are either not yet described or not fully understood or both. In this work, we phenotyped three maize genotypes of the CIMMYT gene bank alongside the reference B73 genotype (NCRPIS – United States) under both control and salt-stressed conditions. We have ranked their growth potential and we observed significant differences in Na+ and Cl- ion accumulation. Genotype CML421 showed the slowest growth, while CML451 had the lowest accumulation of ions in its leaves. The phenotyping defined the right timing for the proteomics analysis, allowing us to compare the contrasting genotypes. In general 1,747 proteins were identified, of which 209 were significantly more abundant in response to salt stress. The five most significantly enriched annotations that positively correlated with stress were oxidation reduction, catabolic process, response to chemical stimulus, translational elongation and response to water. We observed a higher abundance of proteins involved in reactions to oxidative stress, dehydration, respiration, and translation. The five most significantly enriched annotations negatively correlated with stress were nucleosome organization, chromatin assembly, protein-DNA complex assembly, DNA packaging and nucleosome assembly. The genotypic analysis revealed 52 proteins that were correlated to the slow-growing genotype CML421. Their annotations point toward cellular dehydration and oxidative stress. Three root proteins correlated to the CML451 genotype were annotated to protein synthesis and ion compartmentalization. In conclusion, our results highlight the importance of the anti-oxidative system for acclimatization to salt stress and identify potential genotypic marker proteins involved in salt-stress responses.
Highlights
Salinity is a key cause of arable land loss (Gong et al, 2014)
We showed recently that chloride-salinity stress induced in maize leaves stiffened the cell wall, via an apoplast alkalization process (Geilfus et al, 2017)
The Electrical conductivity (EC) of saline soil showed a significant difference in the median, with a slight decrease from the initial to the final EC
Summary
It is estimated that 19.5% of irrigated lands, which provide 40% of the food production worldwide (FAO, 2015), are salt-affected (FAO, 2016). Considering the exponential growth of the population (Melorose et al, 2015), plus the aggravation of the environmental situation by climate change (IPCC, 2007), the challenge is set: Genotype-Specific Salt Stress in Maize increase food production per unit area of cultivated land from more sustainable production systems. Maize (Zea mays) is considered moderately sensitive to salt (Zörb et al, 2004), a category which comprises plants that maintain growth in saline soils with an ECe between 3 and 6 dS m−1 (Hasanuzzaman et al, 2013). Few salt-tolerant cultivars have been commercialized (Flowers and Flowers, 2005)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
