Coumarin-Mediated Growth Regulations, Antioxidant Enzyme Activities, and Photosynthetic Efficiency of Sorghum bicolor Under Saline Conditions

Abstract

Secondary metabolites, such as phenolic compounds, play an important role in alleviating salinity-induced negative effects in plants. The present study focused on seed priming and foliar application of a potent phenolic compound, coumarin, to induce salinity tolerance in Sorghum bicolor var. SS-77. Based on pilot experiment, 100 mg L−1 concentration of coumarin was applied to mitigate the negative effects of salinity on Sorghum, grown at 0, 100, and 200 mM NaCl under netted greenhouse conditions. Coumarin was applied to each salinity treatment in four different ways (i) non-primed control (NP), (ii) seed priming (COP), (iii) foliar application (COF), and (iv) a combination of seed priming and foliar application (COPF). Salinity stress significantly reduced the plant growth, biochemical attributes, and photosynthetic efficiency of Sorghum, whereas coumarin treatments (COP, COF, and COPF) showed a significant increase (P< 0.01) in above-mentioned parameters at all salinities. Among all, the combined treatment (COPF) showed maximum increase in growth, biochemicals, photosynthetic pigments, antioxidant enzymes, and photosynthetic efficiency parameters. Therefore, it is suggested that a combination of seed priming and foliar spray of 10 mg L−1 coumarin is more suitable than their individual applications. It is an environment friendly and economically feasible approach that will be used to improve salinity tolerance of Sorghum and helpful to get considerable biomass from saline degraded lands to fulfill food, fodder, and energy demands of the ever-growing population.

Probing the Phytochemical Composition and Antioxidant Activity of Moringa oleifera under Ideal Germination Conditions

“…Organic osmolytes' accumulation effectively contributed to osmotic adjustments and soluble sugar, maintaining turgidity and protecting cellular metabolism from salt toxicity [73]. The accumulation of both proline and soluble sugar contents indicates their active involvement in osmotic adjustment and temperature tolerance of moringa, as reported in different plant species [74][75][76]. Plants accumulate osmolytes, including polyamines, glycine betaine (GB), proline, and proteins, to maintain turgor pressure and osmoregulatory [77] mechanisms in response to abiotic stressors, which reduce the cytoplasmic osmotic potential and promote water absorption.…”

Combined transcriptome and metabolome analysis revealed pathways involved in improved salt tolerance of Gossypium hirsutum L. seedlings in response to exogenous melatonin application

“…Whereas, coumarin, lignan, and free fatty acids accumulation were reduced in MT treatments as compared to CK (Additional file 1: Supplementary Table 3). This means during salt stress, the cotton seedlings produced higher coumarin as well as free fatty acids to cope with salt stress and upon the application of MT, the seedlings decrease coumarin biosynthesis, which showcases that seedlings are no more under stress [61,62].…”

The molecular effects underlying the pharmacological activities of daphnetin

“…All six types comprise a coumarin moiety and exert diverse medical functions via their distinct structural characteristics. Therefore, coumarins have been widely used in complementary and alternative medicine owing to their potent and comprehensive pharmacological activities, including anti-inflammatory ( Min et al, 2023 ), antibacterial ( Zeng et al, 2023 ), antiviral ( Hwu et al, 2022 ), antioxidant ( Sultana et al, 2022 ), anti-Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) ( Liu W. et al, 2022 ), and antitumor effects ( Ahmed et al, 2022 ). Based on this, a variety of derivative drugs containing a coumarin moiety have been developed and used in clinics, such as esculetin, phenprocoumon, warfarin, acenocoumarol, hymecromone, carbochromen, dicoumarol, and daphnetin ( Figure 1 ).…”