Proteomic Studies: Contribution to Understanding Plant Salinity Stress Response

Abstract

Salinity stress significantly abridged the productivity of global crops. Developing and improving the salinity stress-tolerant species is urgent to continue the food supply in the coming decades; otherwise many individuals might die due to hunger or food insecurity. The genome of plants under saline conditions represents physiological alterations; however, it does not represent the change of protein level reflected by corresponding gene expression at the transcriptome level. While proteins are more reliable determinant since they are directly involved in shaping salinity stress-adapted novel phenotype of physiological traits. Moreover, protein profiles display greater changes then the transcript levels. Therefore, exploring the protein complement of the genome would be naturalistic to elucidate the mechanism of salt tolerance in plants. In this review, an attempt is made to present the role and implementation of proteomic studies in response to plant salinity stress and its significant contributions so far made for better understanding the complex mechanism of the plant under salinity stress. Moreover, brief characteristics of plants in saline conditions and the limitation of proteomic studies are further discussed.