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Abstract
High salinity soils inhibit crop production worldwide and represent a serious agricultural problem. To meet our ever-increasing demand for food, it is essential to understand and engineer salt-resistant crops. In this study, we evaluated the occurrence and function of sulfated polysaccharides in plants. Although ubiquitously present in marine algae, the presence of sulfated polysaccharides among the species tested was restricted to halophytes, suggesting a possible correlation with salt stress or resistance. To test this hypothesis, sulfated polysaccharides from plants artificially and naturally exposed to different salinities were analyzed. Our results revealed that the sulfated polysaccharide concentration, as well as the degree to which these compounds were sulfated in halophytic species, were positively correlated with salinity. We found that sulfated polysaccharides produced by Ruppia maritima Loisel disappeared when the plant was cultivated in the absence of salt. However, subjecting the glycophyte Oryza sativa Linnaeus to salt stress did not induce the biosynthesis of sulfated polysaccharides but increased the concentration of the carboxylated polysaccharides; this finding suggests that negatively charged cell wall polysaccharides might play a role in coping with salt stress. These data suggest that the presence of sulfated polysaccharides in plants is an adaptation to high salt environments, which may have been conserved during plant evolution from marine green algae. Our results address a practical biological concept; additionally, we suggest future strategies that may be beneficial when engineering salt-resistant crops.
Highlights
More than 6% of the world’s land area consists of soil that is high in salinity, which is a critical agricultural problem that inhibits crop production worldwide [1]
Samples obtained after the salinity was restored (Fig. 1-D) had two different fractions of sulfated galactans, one with a higher molecular weight, similar to the compound observed in control samples (Fig. 1-B), and a second fraction with a lower molecular weight
Agarose electrophoresis and autoradiography confirmed this result (Fig. S2-B and C). These results suggested that sulfated galactans produced by R. maritima have a biosynthetic precursor with a lower molecular weight that contains fewer sulfate substitutions
Summary
More than 6% of the world’s land area consists of soil that is high in salinity, which is a critical agricultural problem that inhibits crop production worldwide [1]. High-salinity soil affects up to 20% of irrigated agricultural land, causing the permanent loss of 1.5 million hectares per year [2]. This situation is worrisome considering almost one billion people worldwide are chronically undernourished, a number that continually increases with population growth [1]. Extensive studies have been undertaken to understand the mechanisms involved in plant salt-tolerance; no saltresistant crops have been engineered [3] [4] [5] [6]. We suggest that marine algae, a salt-resistant ancestor of terrestrial plants, may be useful in understanding overall salt-tolerance mechanisms. We hypothesized that plants and algae may share other strategies to counteract salt stress
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