Phytochemistry in Plant Signaling under Abiotic Stress

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Response to Abiotic Stress and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2023) | Viewed by 4388

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Department of Biotechnology, Univesity of the Western Cape, Bellville, 7530, South Africa
Interests: plant responses to drought and heat stress; plant–microbe interactions; plant–insect interactions; regenerative agriculture; food security
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Department of Biology and Plant Ecology, Faculty of Biology, University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland
Interests: adaptation to heavy metal stress; brassinosteroids; phytoecdysteroids; phytohormones
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity, heat, cold, and heavy metals, negatively impact plant productivity. As a part of the plant response to abiotic stress, several molecular events are triggered to regulate physiological processes designed to counteract this stress. Understanding such signaling events is crucial for the manipulation of these affected physiological processes to achieve the desired tolerance to abiotic stress. This Special Issue presents an overview recent advances in plant molecular signaling concerning plant physiological responses to improve these reactions to abiotic stress to enhance crop resilience in the face of the ever-increasing challenges that unfavorable environments bring to crop production. Such innovations are expected to contribute not only to greater knowledge on this subject but also to limit the negative impact of abiotic stress on food security. Original research papers and reviews focusing on molecular signaling events— including those that are mediated by small molecules, secondary metabolites, hormones, lipidic molecules, peptides, and proteins—are invited for submission to this Special Issue. Manuscripts with a focus on the application of omics technologies to unravel such signaling processes and use this information to expand knowledge on how plant physiological processes are regulated at a molecular level under abiotic stress are particularly of interest.

Prof. Dr. Ndiko Ludidi
Dr. Andrzej Bajguz
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • plant signaling
  • secondary metabolites
  • abiotic stress
  • hormones
  • functional genomics
  • transcriptomics
  • proteomics
  • metabolomics

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 4610 KiB  
Article
Metabolomic Study of Flavonoids in Camellia drupifera under Aluminum Stress by UPLC-MS/MS
by Yi Wang, Junsen Cheng, Shanglin Wei, Wei Jiang, Yongquan Li, Wei Guo, Wenkui Dai and Boyong Liao
Plants 2023, 12(7), 1432; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071432 - 24 Mar 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1891
Abstract
Aluminum (Al) affects the yield of forest trees in acidic soils. The oil tea plant (Camellia drupifera Lour.) has high Al tolerance, with abundant phenolic compounds in its leaves, especially flavonoid compounds. The role of these flavonoids in the Al resistance of [...] Read more.
Aluminum (Al) affects the yield of forest trees in acidic soils. The oil tea plant (Camellia drupifera Lour.) has high Al tolerance, with abundant phenolic compounds in its leaves, especially flavonoid compounds. The role of these flavonoids in the Al resistance of oil tea plants is unclear. In this metabolomic study of C. drupifera under Al stress, ultra-pressure liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was utilized to identify metabolites, while principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis were applied to analyze the data on the flavonoid metabolites. The leaf morphology of C. drupifera revealed significant damage by excess aluminum ions under each treatment compared with the control group. Under Al stress at 2 mmol/L (GZ2) and 4 mmol/L (GZ4), the total flavonoid content in C. drupifera leaves reached 24.37 and 35.64 mg/g, respectively, which are significantly higher than the levels measured in the control group (CK) (p < 0.01). In addition, we identified 25 upregulated and 5 downregulated metabolites in the GZ2 vs. CK comparison and 31 upregulated and 7 downregulated flavonoid metabolites in GZ4 vs. CK. The results demonstrate that different levels of Al stress had a significant influence on the metabolite profile of C. drupifera. It was found that the abundance of the 24 differential flavonoid metabolites was gradually elevated with increasing concentrations of Al stress, including catechin, epicatechin, naringenin-7-glucoside, astilbin, taxifolin, miquelianin, quercitrin, and quercimeritrin. Moreover, the most significant increase in antioxidant activity (about 30%) was observed in C. drupifera precultured in leaf extracts containing 7.5 and 15 μg/mL of active flavonoids. The qRT-PCR results showed that the expression levels of key genes involved in the synthesis of flavonoids were consistent with the accumulation trends of flavonoids under different concentrations of Al. Therefore, our results demonstrate the key role of flavonoid compounds in the oil tea plant C. drupifera in response to Al stress, which suggests that flavonoid metabolites in C. drupifera, as well as other aluminum-tolerant plants, may help with detoxifying aluminum. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytochemistry in Plant Signaling under Abiotic Stress)
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18 pages, 2220 KiB  
Article
Exogenous α-Tocopherol Regulates the Growth and Metabolism of Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) under Drought Stress
by Nudrat Aisha Akram, Rohina Bashir, Gulshan Ashraf, Shehnaz Bashir, Muhammad Ashraf, Mohammed Nasser Alyemeni, Andrzej Bajguz and Parvaiz Ahmad
Plants 2023, 12(2), 237; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12020237 - 4 Jan 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1739
Abstract
The present investigation was designed to improve drought stress tolerance in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) through the exogenous application of α-tocopherol (TOC). For exogenous application, two modes, i.e., foliar spray (FS) and pre-sowing seed treatment (PS), were used. Water deficiency treatment (50% [...] Read more.
The present investigation was designed to improve drought stress tolerance in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) through the exogenous application of α-tocopherol (TOC). For exogenous application, two modes, i.e., foliar spray (FS) and pre-sowing seed treatment (PS), were used. Water deficiency treatment (50% field capacity (FC)) was applied on 32-day-old seedlings of two eggplant cultivars, i.e., Janak and Black Beauty. Five levels of TOC (0 mg/L, 50 mg/L PS, 100 mg/L PS, 50 mg/L FS, and 100 mg/L FS) were applied as PS and FS. Pre-sowing seed treatment was conducted before seed sowing, while FS treatment after 30 days of drought stress treatment. After 15 days of TOC as an FS application, it was observed that drought stress significantly reduced plant growth (5–15%) and chlorophyll contents (4–10%), while it increased proline (4–6%), glycine betaine (GB) (5–10%), malondialdehyde (MDA) (10.8%), hydrogen peroxide (15–16%), relative membrane permeability (RMP) (5–8%), and the activities of peroxidase (7–8%) and superoxide dismutase (12–15%) in both eggplant cultivars. The TOC application (FS and PS) exhibited a positive role in overcoming the adverse effect of water stress on eggplants. Plant growth increased (15–18%) as a result of the application of TOC, which could be linked with improved chlorophyll, ascorbic acid (AsA), GB, proline, total soluble proteins (TSP), and the activities of peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities. The reactive oxygen species H2O2 was also decreased by TOC application. Overall, TOC as a foliar spray was more effective in improving the accumulation of proline, GB, AsA, and activities of SOD and POD enzymes, while PS treatment was more effective in reducing RMP and improving the TSP of eggplant. Cv. Black Beauty was comparatively better in root dry weight, chlorophyll a and b, and MDA contents, while cv. Janak in RMP, AsA, TSP, and activity of the POD enzyme. It can be inferred that the application of TOC was useful in counteracting the harmful effects of drought stress on both cultivars of eggplants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytochemistry in Plant Signaling under Abiotic Stress)
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