Plants as sessile organisms are continuously exposed to abiotic stress conditions that impose numerous detrimental effects and cause tremendous loss of yield. Abiotic stresses, including high sunlight, confer serious damage on the photosynthetic machinery of plants. Photosystem II (PSII) is one of the most susceptible components of the photosynthetic machinery that bears the brunt of abiotic stress. In addition to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by abiotic stress, ROS can also result from the absorption of excessive sunlight by the light-harvesting complex. ROS can damage the photosynthetic apparatus, particularly PSII, resulting in photoinhibition due to an imbalance in the photosynthetic redox signaling pathways and the inhibition of PSII repair. Designing plants with improved abiotic stress tolerance will require a comprehensive understanding of ROS signaling and the regulatory functions of various components, including protein kinases, transcription factors, and phytohormones, in the responses of photosynthetic machinery to abiotic stress. Bioenergetics approaches, such as chlorophyll a transient kinetics analysis, have facilitated our understanding of plant vitality and the assessment of PSII efficiency under adverse environmental conditions. This review discusses the current understanding and indicates potential areas of further studies on the regulation of the photosynthetic machinery under abiotic stress.
We have isolated 576 endophytic bacteria from the leaves, stems, and roots of 10 rice cultivars and identified 12 of them as diazotrophic bacteria using a specific primer set of nif gene. Through 16S rDNA sequence analysis, nifH genes were confirmed in the two species of Penibacillus, three species of Microbacterium, three Bacillus species, and four species of Klebsiella. Rice seeds treated with these plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) showed improved plant growth, increased height and dry weight and antagonistic effects against fungal pathogens. In addition, auxin and siderophore producing ability, and phosphate solubilizing activity were studied for the possible mechanisms of plant growth promotion. Among 12 isolates tested, 10 strains have shown higher auxin producing activity, 6 isolates were confirmed as strains with high siderophore producing activity while 4 isolates turned out to have high phosphate-solubilizing activity. These results strongly suggest that the endophytic diazotrophic bacteria characterized in this study could be successfully used to promote plant growth and inducing fungal resistance in plants.
Salt-tolerance was studied in transgenic potato. It was conferred by overexpression of ascorbate pathway enzyme (D-galacturonic acid reductase, GalUR). As genetic engineering of the GalUR gene in potato enhances its ascorbic acid content (L-AsA), and subsequently plants suffered minimal oxidative stress-induced damage, we now report on the comprehensive aptness of this engineering approach for enhanced salt tolerance in transgenic potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Taedong Valley). Potatoes overexpressing GalUR grew and tuberized in continuous presence of 200 mM of NaCl. The transgenic plants maintained a higher reduced to oxidized glutathione (GSH:GSSG) ratio together with enhanced activity of glutathione dependent antioxidative and glyoxalase enzymes under salinity stress. The transgenics resisted an increase in methylglyoxal that increased radically in untransformed control plants under salinity stress. This is the first report of genetic engineering of ascorbate pathway gene in maintaining higher level of GSH homeostasis along with higher glyoxalase activity inhibiting the accumulation in methylglyoxal (a potent cytotoxic compound) under salt stress. These results suggested the engineering of ascorbate pathway enzymes as a major step towards developing salinity tolerant crop plants.
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