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Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 March 2023) | Viewed by 15286

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Dr. Mohsen Mohamed Elsharkawy

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Botany, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr El-Sheikh 33516, Egypt
Interests: plant pathology; induced systemic resistance; gene expression; resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses

Prof. Dr. Md Motaher Hossain

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Guest Editor

Department of Plant Pathology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur 1706, Bangladesh
Interests: crop health management; plant growth-promoting microorganisms; host resistance

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Crop production is suffering due to stress conditions, and food security is becoming a major global concern. Extreme and quick global climate changes have exacerbated the current situation. The fast growth of the world's population and the resulting impact of climate change are posing serious threats to global food security. Global food security is seriously affected by abiotic and biotic stresses. Plants are constantly subjected to a wide variety of environmental challenges due to their sessile behavior. Environmental stresses such as drought, heat, salt, or cold may have a detrimental effect on plant development and productivity in the field. Additionally, plants endure the danger of infection by pathogens (including bacteria, fungus, viruses, and nematodes) and invasion by herbivore pests under natural conditions. Insects and diseases may be affected by climate change, which affects their habitat distribution. Increased temperatures, for example, are known to enhance the spread of pathogens. Plants have been reported to be exposed to several abiotic and/or biotic stress conditions at the same time, such as a combination of drought and heat, drought and cold, salinity and heat, or any of the main abiotic stress conditions associated with pathogen infection. Plant responses to combinations of two or more stress situations are unique, according to recent research, and cannot be predicted simply from plant responses to each of the different stresses. Plant responses are very complicated when many stressors occur at the same time since the responses to the combined stresses are regulated mainly by separate and often conflicting signaling pathways that may interact and inhibit each other.

Dr. Mohsen Mohamed Elsharkawy
Prof. Dr. Md Motaher Hossain
Guest Editors

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Keywords

plant pathogens
induced resistance
drought stress
salinity stress
gene expression
growth promotion

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 5600 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Gus Expression Induced by Anti-Sense OsPPO Gene Promoter and Antioxidant Enzymatic Assays in Response to Drought and Heavy Metal Stress in Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana

by Zakir Ullah, Javed Iqbal, Banzeer Ahsan Abbasi, Wasim Akhtar, Sobia Kanwal, Iftikhar Ali, Wadie Chalgham, Mohamed A. El-Sheikh and Tariq Mahmood

Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 12783; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151712783 - 23 Aug 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1195

Abstract

Abiotic stresses, including drought and heavy metals, are detrimental to plant growth and development and enormously reduce agricultural yields. Plants may quickly change their transcriptome in response to various stressful conditions. Plants develop many defense mechanisms to respond to various stresses that can be classified into morphological, physiological, and biochemical responses. Polyphenol oxidases (PPOs) are one of the self-protective enzymes found in plants except for Arabidopsis. Currently, drought and heavy metals were applied exogenously to transgenic A. thaliana lines (transformed with Oryza sativa PPO promoter fused to the GUS reporter gene). The current study mainly focused on the systematic pathway by which plants respond to stressors. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect/expression of PPO and antioxidant defense system against abiotic stresses. A. thaliana was treated with different concentrations of polyethylene glycols. At 30% PEG, maximum fold induction (1.9) was seen after 12 h. Overall, various concentrations (5%, 20%, and 30%) induced PPO expression after 6, 12, and 24 h. Moreover, three different concentrations of Cu (50 µM, 100 µM, 200 µM) and Ni (50 µM, 100 µM, 200 µM) for 6, 12, and 24 h were also applied. It was observed that the expression profiling of the OsPPO promoter induced GUS gene expression in response to Cu and Ni treatments. The maximum fold induction (15.03) of GUS was observed in 100 µM of Cu after 24 h. In the case of Ni, maximum fold induction of (7.78) was observed at 100 µM after 24 h. So, both Cu and Ni showed a similar pattern of induction at 100 µM after 24 h. In conclusion, the efficiency of the PPOGUS promoter can be operated to assess the response of plants to various abiotic stimuli. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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14 pages, 3285 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Eight Faba Bean (Vicia faba L.) Cultivars for Drought Stress Tolerance through Molecular, Morphological, and Physiochemical Parameters

by Shaimaa M. Essa, Hany A. Wafa, EL-Sayed I. Mahgoub, Abdallah A. Hassanin, Jameel M. Al-Khayri, Areej S. Jalal, Diaa Abd El-Moneim, Salha M. ALshamrani, Fatmah A. Safhi and Ahmed S. Eldomiaty

Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3291; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043291 - 10 Feb 2023

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2121

Abstract

Determining and improving drought-tolerant cultivars is a major goal of plant breeding to face climate change. The productivity of faba bean in Egypt is affected by abiotic stresses, especially drought stress. This study evaluated eight Egyptian faba bean cultivars for drought tolerance under three soil water regimes consisting of well-watered (100% field capacity), moderate drought stress (50% field capacity), and severe drought stress (25% field capacity) regimes in pots under greenhouse conditions using biochemical, physiochemical, and molecular parameters. The cultivars Nubariya 1, Nubariya 3, and Giza 716 showed the highest proline content values under 50% field capacity conditions, with 4.94, 4.39, and 4.26 mmol/g fresh weights, respectively. On the other hand, the cultivars Sakha 1, Sakha 4, Nubariya 1, and Nubariya 3 exhibited the highest proline contents (7.8, 7.53, 6.17, and 6.25, respectively) under 25% field capacity treatment. The molecular profiling was conducted using SCoT and SRAP approaches. Fresh leaves were utilized to extract the DNA, and ten primers for SRAP and six for SCoT were used in the PCR procedures. SCoT and SRAP-PCR generated 72 loci, of which, 55 were polymorphic, and 17 were monomorphic. SCoT and SRAP each had 48 and 24 total loci, respectively. The average polymorphism (%) values achieved via SCoT and SRAP were 70.93% and 80%, respectively. Based on the molecular profiles, the cluster analysis identified three clusters. The first cluster comprised Giza 716 cultivars; the second cluster included Sakha 1, Sakha 3, Sakha 4, and Akba 3300 cultivars; the third cluster comprised two cultivars Nubariya 1 and Nubariya3. According to the study’s findings, Sakha 1, Sakha 4, Nubariya 1, and Nubariya 3 are remarkable parents for developing drought-tolerant faba bean genotypes. Additionally, this study concluded that SRAP and SCoT markers recreated trustworthy banding profiles to evaluate the genetic polymorphism among faba bean cultivars, which are regarded as the cornerstone for genetic improvements in crops. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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16 pages, 2167 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Iron Sulfate (FeSO₄) Improved Physiological Attributes and Antioxidant Capacity by Reducing Oxidative Stress of Oryza sativa L. Cultivars in Alkaline Soil

by Ammara Saleem, Asma Zulfiqar, Baber Ali, Manal Ahmed Naseeb, Arwa Saad Almasaudi and Steve Harakeh

Sustainability 2022, 14(24), 16845; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416845 - 15 Dec 2022

Cited by 25 | Viewed by 3397

Abstract

Rice ranks second among cereals in dietary uses around the world. Rice is deficient in iron (Fe), and these are important micronutrients for infants, men, and women. Fortification of rice with iron would help to minimize nutrient deficiency disorders among humans. The current study aims to introduce nutrient-rich rice. The effects of iron on germination, growth, photosynthetic pigment, antioxidant activity, and reduction of oxidative stress were investigated in four Oryza sativa L. cultivars. O. sativa of four different cultivars (Basmati-515, PK-386, KSK-133, and Basmati-198) were grown under five treatments (100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 mM) of iron sulphate (FeSO₄) in soil of pH 7.5, along with control, by using six replicates. The result revealed that Fe treatment significantly affected seed germination percentage, plant growth parameters, biomass, photosynthetic pigments (chl a, chl b, total chlorophyll, and carotenoids), antioxidant enzymatic and non-enzymatic activity, and reduced oxidative stress. The findings also showed that Fe application reduced the oxidative stress including malondialdehyde content and hydrogen peroxide, by increasing the antioxidant enzymatic activity, i.e., catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, glutathione peroxidase, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH), and non-enzymatic antioxidant compounds (proline, amino acid, total soluble protein, phenolics, flavonoids, reducing-non-reducing sugar, and carbohydrates) in all cultivars of O. sativa. Furthermore, FeSO₄ induced a significant increase in proline, free amino acid, and total carbohydrates in the leaves of all O. sativa cultivars, but Basmati-198 showed the significantly highest content by 169, 88, and 110%, respectively, at concentration of 500 mM. The present research work showed that soil application of FeSO₄ improved the seed germination, plant growth, and antioxidants enzymatic and non-enzymatic activity, denatured the ROS (reactive oxygen species) in alkaline soil. In order to understand the underlying mechanisms, long-term field investigations should be carried out at the molecular level to examine patterns of iron uptake and plant growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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15 pages, 1848 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Immune Responses of Rhynchophorus ferrugineus to a New Strain of Beauveria bassiana

by Mohsen Mohamed Elsharkawy, Fatimah O. Alotibi, Abdulaziz A. Al-Askar, Muhammad Kamran, Said I. Behiry, Salam S. Alasharari, Fatma H. Galal, Muhammad Adnan and Ahmed Abdelkhalek

Sustainability 2022, 14(20), 13002; https://doi.org/10.3390/su142013002 - 11 Oct 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1379

Abstract

Evaluating a novel fungal strain’s pathogenicity to important pests and their involved immune responses may give crucial data on a broad scale for future use in pest management strategies. Date palms are mostly destroyed by invading populations of red palm weevils; thus, developing natural biopesticides for them requires a comprehensive screening program of plant secondary metabolites. In this research, we examined the pathogenicity of a new strain of Beauveria bassiana on an important agricultural pest, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, by measuring the relative activity of defensive enzymes and detoxifying enzymes in certain larval instars. Our findings reveal that the B. bassiana strain may infect the instars of R. ferrugineus, and its pathogenicity to the larvae steadily increases as the spore concentration increases. Seven days after inoculation, the LC₅₀ (the median lethal concentration) of B. bassiana was 490.42 × 10⁵ and 2974.47 × 10⁸ spores/mL for the second and fourth instar R. ferrugineus, respectively, and the LC₅₀ of B. bassiana for each R. ferrugineus instar decreased with infection time, indicating a significant dose effect. Infected R. ferrugineus larvae of the second instars showed considerable changes in the activity of both protecting and detoxifying enzymes (peroxidase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, Cytochrome P450, glutathione S transferase (GST), and esterase) as infection time progressed. In addition, R. ferrugineus larvae that were infected with B. bassiana had enzyme activity that persisted from 24 to 48 h, which was much longer than in the control group. Lethality of B. bassiana resulted in elevated expressions of GST, Esterase, and Cytochrome P450 responsive genes. In conclusion, the results of this research indicate that B. bassiana may be utilized as a bio-insecticide to suppress young larvae of R. ferrugineus in an integrated pest management program. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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17 pages, 2471 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effects of Osmosis and Thermo-Priming on Salinity Stress Tolerance in Vigna radiata L.

by Saqib Ali, Sami Ullah, Muhammad Nauman Khan, Wisal Muhammad Khan, Sarah Abdul Razak, Sana Wahab, Aqsa Hafeez, Sajid Ali Khan Bangash and Peter Poczai

Sustainability 2022, 14(19), 12924; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912924 - 10 Oct 2022

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 2109

Abstract

A plant’s response to osmotic stress is a complex phenomenon that causes many abnormal symptoms due to limitations in growth and development or even the loss of yield. The current research aimed to analyze the agronomical, physiological, and biochemical mechanisms accompanying the acquisition of salt resistance in the Vigna radiata L. variety ‘Ramzan’ using seed osmo- and thermopriming in the presence of PEG-4000 and 4 °C under induced salinity stresses of 100 and 150 mM NaCl. Seeds were collected from CCRI, Nowshera, and sowing was undertaken in triplicate at the Department of Botany, Peshawar University, during the 2018–2019 growing season. Rhizospheric soil pH (6.0), E.C (2.41 ds/m), field capacity, and moisture content level were estimated in the present study. We observed from the estimated results that the agronomic characteristics, i.e., shoot fresh weight and shoot dry weight in T9 (4oC + 150 mM NaCl), root fresh weight and root dry weight in T4 (PEG + 100 mM NaCl), shoot moisture content in T5 (PEG + 100 mM NaCl), and root moisture content in T6 (PEG + 150 mM NaCl) were the highest, followed by the lowest in T1 (both shoot and root fresh weights) and T2 (shoot and root dry weights). Similarly, the shoot moisture content was the maximum in T5 and the minimum in T6, and root moisture was the highest in T6. We observed from the estimated results that agronomical parameters including dry masses (T4, T6, T4), leaf area index, germination index, leaf area, total biomass, seed vigor index under treatment T9, and relative water content and water use efficiency during T5 and T6 were the highest. Plant physiological traits such as proline, SOD enhanced by T1, carotenoids in treatment T2, and chlorophyll and protein levels were the highest under treatment T4, whereas sugar and POD were highest under treatments T7 and T8. The principal component analysis enclosed 63.75% of the total variation among all biological components. These estimated results confirmed the positive resistance by Vigna radiata during osmopriming (PEG) and thermopriming (4 °C) on most of the features with great tolerance under a low-saline treatment such as T4 (PEG), T5 (PEG + 100 mM NaCl), T7 (4 °C), and T8 (4 °C + 100 mM NaCl), while it was susceptible in the case of T6 (PEG + 150 mM NaCl) and T9 (4 °C + 150 mM NaCl) to high salt application. We found that the constraining impact of several priming techniques improved low salinity, which was regarded as economically inexpensive and initiated numerous metabolic processes in plants, hence decreasing germination time. The current study will have major applications for combatting the salinity problem induced by climate change in Pakistan. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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19 pages, 2694 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Bread Wheat Genotypes for Drought Tolerance Using Canopy Reflectance-Based Phenotyping and SSR Marker-Based Genotyping

by Mohammed Mohi-Ud-Din, Md. Alamgir Hossain, Md. Motiar Rohman, Md. Nesar Uddin, Md. Sabibul Haque, Eldessoky S. Dessoky, Mohammed Alqurashi and Salman Aloufi

Sustainability 2022, 14(16), 9818; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14169818 - 9 Aug 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2140

Abstract

This study investigated the genetic diversity of bread-wheat genotypes using canopy reflectance-based vegetation indices (VIs) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker-based genotyping for drought tolerance. A total of 56 wheat genotypes were assessed using phenotypic traits (combination of VIs and yield traits) and 30 SSR markers. The data of the phenotypic traits were averaged over two growing seasons under irrigated and drought-stressed conditions. The hierarchical clustering of the wheat genotypes unveiled three drought-tolerant groups. Cluster 1 genotypes showed minimal phenotypic alterations, conferring superior drought tolerance and yield stability than clusters 2 and 3. The polymorphism information content values for the SSR markers ranged from 0.434 to 0.932, averaging 0.83. A total of 458 alleles (18.32 alleles per locus) were detected, with the most polymorphic markers, wmc177 and wms292, having the most alleles (24). A comparative study of SSR diversity among phenotypic clusters indicated that genotypes under cluster 1 had higher genetic diversity (0.879) and unique alleles (47%), suggesting their potential in future breeding programs. The unweighted neighbor-joining tree grouped the wheat genotypes into five major clusters. Wheat genotypes from all phenotypic clusters were distributed throughout all SSR-based clusters, indicating that genetically heterogeneous genotypes were allocated to different drought-tolerant groups. However, SSR-based clusters and model-based populations showed significant co-linearity (86.7%). The findings of the present study suggest that combining reflectance-based indirect phenotyping with SSR-based genotyping might be an effective technique for assessing genetic diversity to improve the drought tolerance of bread-wheat genotypes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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16 pages, 2616 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impacts of Ascorbic Acid and Alpha-Tocopherol on Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Grown in Water Deficit Regimes for Sustainable Production

by Hossam S. El-Beltagi, Sikandar Shah, Sami Ullah, Sulaiman, Abdallah Tageldein Mansour and Tarek A. Shalaby

Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8861; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148861 - 20 Jul 2022

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 1987

Abstract

Drought is a major abiotic stress forced by the changing climate that affects plant production and soil structure and functions. A study was conducted to explore the impacts of ascorbic acid (AsA) and α-tocopherol (α-toc) on the agro-physiological attributes and antioxidant enzymes of chickpea grown in water deficit regions. The results of the soil analysis showed that the electrical conductivity (EC) and pH were decreased from 521 mS/m and 7.08 to 151 mS/m and 6.6 in 20-day drought regimes, respectively. Agronomic outcomes showed that exogenous application of AsA and α-toc increased the germination rate index (GRI), mean germination time (MGT), germination energy (GE), water use efficiency (WUE), germination percentage (GP), and seed vigor index (SVI). However, all the above attributes experienced a decline under 10- and 20-day drought stress. Similarly, the Chl. a, Chl. b, carotenoids, proline, protein, sugar, glycine betaine, and hydrogen peroxide contents were significantly increased. Meanwhile, malondialdehyde, glutathione reductase, and enzymatic antioxidants (APOX, SOD, and POD) increased during 10- and 20-day drought, except CAT, which decreased during drought. The exogenous fertigation of these growth regulators improved the photosynthetic pigments and enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants in stressed plants. The current research concludes that simultaneous dusting of AsA and α-toc could be an efficient technique to mitigate the antagonistic impacts of drought, which might be linked to the regulation of antioxidant defense systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mitigate Hunger through Enhancing Plant Resistance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses)

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