Abstract
BackgroundSalt stress is one of the main constraints determining crop productivity, and therefore one of the main limitations for food production. The aim of this study was to characterize the salt stress response at the physiological and molecular level of different Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. Italica Plenck) cultivars that were previously characterized in field and greenhouse trials as salt sensitive or salt tolerant. This study aimed to identify functional and molecular traits capable of predicting the ability of uncharacterized lines to cope with salt stress. For this purpose, this study measured different physiological parameters, hormones and metabolites under control and salt stress conditions.ResultsThis study found significant differences among cultivars for stomatal conductance, transpiration, methionine, proline, threonine, abscisic acid, jasmonic acid and indolacetic acid. Salt tolerant cultivars were shown to accumulate less sodium and potassium in leaves and have a lower sodium to potassium ratio under salt stress. Analysis of primary metabolites indicated that salt tolerant cultivars have higher concentrations of several intermediates of the Krebs cycle and the substrates of some anaplerotic reactions.ConclusionsThis study has found that the energetic status of the plant, the sodium extrusion and the proline content are the limiting factors for broccoli tolerance to salt stress. Our results establish physiological and molecular traits useful as distinctive markers to predict salt tolerance in Broccoli or to design novel biotechnological or breeding strategies for improving broccoli tolerance to salt stress.
Highlights
Salt stress is one of the main constraints determining crop productivity, and one of the main limitations for food production
This study found a clear positive effect on the water use efficiency (WUE) of salt-sensitive plants under stress, while salt-tolerant cultivars retained similar values under stress and control conditions, indicating that were dealing better with the stress (Fig. 1D)
This study found that leaves from stress tolerant plants accumulate less sodium than leaves of sensitive plants (Figure 6A), and less potassium (Figure 6B), but the Na+/K+ ratio is significantly lower for salt tolerant cultivars (Figure 6C), indicating that the loss of potassium is less than the uptake of sodium
Summary
Salt stress is one of the main constraints determining crop productivity, and one of the main limitations for food production. This study aimed to identify functional and molecu‐ lar traits capable of predicting the ability of uncharacterized lines to cope with salt stress. For this purpose, this study measured different physiological parameters, hormones and metabolites under control and salt stress conditions. From the horticultural point of view, breeding for salt tolerant crops has proven to be very difficult. There is information on only two successful field trials of crops transformed with a gene able to increase salt tolerance [9]: barley expressing the Arabidopsis thaliana vacuolar H+-pyrophosphatase (AVP1) [10] and wheat expressing the vacuolar N a+/H+ antiporter gene AtNHX1 from Arabidopsis thaliana [11]
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