IntroductionAbiotic stress is a global agricultural issue that limits plant growth and yield. Amongst abiotic stresses, salt stress leads to significant crop losses worldwide (Greenway and Munns, 1980). Although natural salts are present in soil, their increased concentration affects plant growth adversely. Rao et al. (2008) reported that salinity affects about 932 million hectares of land globally. In plant cells under salt stress, Na + and Clions accumulate in cytoplasm and lower the external water potential, resulting in turgor loss (Binzel et al., 1988). It creates an imbalance of cellular ions that results in ion toxicity, or osmotic stress, followed by significant oxidative stress (Gosset et al., 1996;Goemez et al., 1999;Hasegawa et al., 2000). Together, these factors lead to decreased plant growth, development, and survival. Elevated amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as superoxide (O 2•ˉ) , hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), and hydroxyl (OH • ) radicals can critically disturb cellular homeostasis and standard metabolism through oxidative damage to protein, lipids, and nucleic acid (Baxter et al., 2007).Plants elicit a molecular response to prevent oxidative damage due to ROS production and adjust to the oxidative stress (Baxter et al., 2007;Demirkaya, 2014;Yaycılı and Alikamanoğlu, 2012). They have developed a multifaceted antioxidant defense with enzymatic molecules, including ascorbate peroxidase (APX, EC 1.11.1.11), glutathione reductase (GR, E.C. 1.6.4.2), and peroxidase (POD, EC 1.11.1.7). All these molecules play an important role in scavenging ROS formed during oxidative damage (Erdal and Çakırlar, 2014;Petrić et al., 2014).Recently, the role of heme oxygenase (HO, EC 1.14.99.3) has been recognized among plant defenses as a catalyst for the oxidation of heme to biliverdin IXα (BV), CO, and