Psychrotrophic Soil Microbes and Their Role in Alleviation of Cold Stress in Plants

Abstract

AbstractThe psychrotrophic microbes having plant growth-promoting ability is used to enhance the ability of plant to develop tolerance against different stresses including cold stress, but the real mechanism behind such improved tolerant ability for protecting the host plant is not clearly known till date. The effect of plant-associated psychrotrophic bacteria has been studied in the maize, on the nutrient status, lipid profile of cell wall and lignin content to establish a correlation between lipid profile and cold stress tolerance. The cold stress also results in cell dehydration due to frizzing effect on cell content, which will block all the cell biochemical activities. So the effect of psychrotrophic bacteria on the osmotic and oxidative stress in cold stressed maize plant has been studied to minimize the adverse effect of stress. The study showed that psychrotrophic bacteria is capable to change lipid profile as well as the cell membrane properties of plant under cold stress and help plant to better survive under stress.KeywordsAlleviationCold stressPsychrophilesPsychrotolerant