Background
Salt, a common environmental stress factor, inhibits plant growth and reduces yields. Melatonin is a pleiotropic molecule that regulates plant growth and can alleviate environmental stress in plants. All previous research on this topic has focused on the use of melatonin to improve the relatively low salt tolerance of glycophytes by promoting growth and enhancing antioxidant ability. It is unclear whether exogenous melatonin can increase the salt tolerance of halophytes, particularly recretohalophytes, by enhancing salt secretion from the salt glands.
Results
To examine the mechanisms of melatonin-mediated salt tolerance, we explored the effects of exogenous applications of melatonin on the secretion of salt from the salt glands of Limonium bicolor (a kind of recretohalophyte) seedlings and on the expression of associated genes. A pretreatment with 5 µM melatonin significantly improved the growth of L. bicolor seedlings under 300 mM NaCl. Furthermore, exogenous melatonin significantly increased the dry weight and endogenous melatonin content of L. bicolor. In addition, this treatment reduced the content of Na+ and Cl− in leaves, but increased the K+ content. Both the salt secretion rate of the salt glands and the expression level of genes encoding ion transporters (LbHTK1, LbSOS1, LbPMA, and LbNHX1) and vesicular transport proteins (LbVAMP721, LbVAP27, and LbVAMP12) were significantly increased by exogenous melatonin treatment. These results indicate that melatonin improves the salt tolerance of the recretohalophyte L. bicolor via the upregulation of salt secretion by the salt glands.
Conclusions
Our results showed that melatonin can upregulate the expression of genes encoding ion transporters and vesicle transport proteins to enhance salt secretion from the salt glands. Combining the results of the current study with previous research, we formulated a novel mechanism by which melatonin increases salt secretion in L. bicolor. Melatonin binds to an unknown receptor located at the PM, which activates the downstream signaling pathway, and then a NO or ROS signaling pathway. This in turn upregulates the expression of genes encoding ion transporters and vesicle transport proteins. The ion transporters transport ions (mainly Na+) into the salt glands, which are subsequently secreted through the participation of various ion transporters and transport vesicles to maintain ionic homeostasis in the cells and alleviate NaCl-induced growth inhibition.