Methodology of Drought Stress Research: Experimental Setup and Physiological Characterization

Abstract

Drought is one of the major stress factors affecting growth and development of plants. In this context, drought-related losses of crop plant productivity impede sustainable agriculture all over the world. In general, plants responses to water deficit by multiple physiological and metabolic adaptations at the molecular, cellular and organism levels. To understand the underlying mechanisms of drought tolerance, adequate stress models and arrays of reliable stress markers are required. Therefore, in this review we comprehensively address currently available models of drought stress, based on culturing plants in soil, hydroponic or agar culture. These experimental setups give access to different aspects of plant response to drought, like decrease of tissue water potential, reduction of stomata conductance and photosynthesis efficiency, accumulation of low-molecular weight solutes (metabolic adjustment) and drought protective proteins. Till now, this pattern of markers was successfully extended to the methods of enzyme chemistry, molecular biology and omics techniques. Thus, conventional tests can be efficiently complemented by determination of phytohormone and reactive oxygen species (ROS) contents, activities of antioxidant enzymes, as well as comprehensive profiling of transcriptome, proteome and metabolome.

A review on abiotic stress resistance in maize: effect, resistance mechanism and management

“…The resilience to drought is the result of the combined effects of these methods. The drought resistance refers to the capacity of plants to sustain a good balance of water and turgidity status even when they are subjected to water stress situations (Osmolovskaya et al, 2018). Plants are able to finish their life cycle prior to the beginning of drought, which is a method known as drought escape (Figure 2).…”

“…Plants are able to finish their life cycle prior to the beginning of drought, which is a method known as drought escape (Figure 2). They exhibit seasonal fluctuations (Osmolovskaya et al, 2018;Basu et al, 2016).…”

In Vitro Screening of Zea mays L. for drought tolerance

“…Like in most crop farming, maize production is affected by the unpredictable weather and climatic factors especially that of drought (Wilhite and Glantz, 1985;Cudjoe et al, 2021). A plant is said to be undergoing drought stress if the available water in the soil required for optimum growth and biomass production of the plant has dropped below the plant rhizosphere (Osmolovskaya et al, 2018). Drought is often caused by changing weather patterns exacerbated by human activities leaving many lives with devastating effects such as mass starvation, famine and cessation of economic activity especially in areas where agriculture is the major booster of the economy.…”

Sydnone imines as a new class of promising plant growth modulators and potential drought-protective phytoeffectors – a first experimental structure-activity-analysis overview

“…Obviously, dehydration associated with severe long-term persisting drought cannot be sustained by the organism and ultimately leads to viability loss and death. On the other hand, transient dehydration triggers adaptive stress responses which ensure plant survival during the unfavorable period and help to sustain or regain its productivity [2].…”