Polyamines and abiotic stress tolerance in plants

Abstract

Environmental stresses including climate change, especially global warming, are severely affecting plant growth and productivity worldwide. It has been estimated that two-thirds of the yield potential of major crops are routinely lost due to the unfavorable environmental factors. On the other hand, the world population is estimated to reach about 10 billion by 2050, which will witness serious food shortages. Therefore, crops with enhanced vigour and high tolerance to various environmental factors should be developed to feed the increasing world population. Maintaining crop yields under adverse environmental stresses is probably the major challenge facing modern agriculture where polyamines can play important role. Polyamines (PAs)(putrescine, spermidine and spermine) are group of phytohormone-like aliphatic amine natural compounds with aliphatic nitrogen structure and present in almost all living organisms including plants. Evidences showed that polyamines are involved in many physiological processes, such as cell growth and development and respond to stress tolerance to various environmental factors. In many cases the relationship of plant stress tolerance was noted with the production of conjugated and bound polyamines as well as stimulation of polyamine oxidation. Therefore, genetic manipulation of crop plants with genes encoding enzymes of polyamine biosynthetic pathways may provide better stress tolerance to crop plants. Furthermore, the exogenous application of PAs is also another option for increasing the stress tolerance potential in plants. Here, we have described the synthesis and role of various polyamines in abiotic stress tolerance in plants.

Sorbitol and NaCl stresses affect free, microsome-associated and thylakoid-associated polyamine content in Zea mays and Phaseolus vulgaris

“…Spm)/Put ratio increases with salinity in all species with enhanced salinity tolerance (Bouchereau et al 1999;Zapata et al 2004;Liu et al 2007, Gill andTuteja 2010). Our results showed the decrease in the free and microsome-and thylakoid-associated (Spd ?…”

“…There is an extensive literature describing the correlations of changes in PA levels and physiological perturbations on the protective effect of PAs during environmental stresses (Bouchereau et al 1999;Alcazar et al 2006;Groppa and Benavides 2008;Liu et al 2007;Gill and Tuteja 2010). However, it should be known that under the stress different plant species vary in their response in terms of polyamine fluctuations.…”

“…In nine rice cultivars that differed in salt sensitivity, salt-tolerant cultivars accumulated high concentrations of Spd and Spm, while the salt-sensitive ones accumulated extensive Put and lower levels of Spd and Spm (Krishnamurthy and Bhagwat 1989). Stress-tolerant plants generally have a large capacity to enhance PA biosynthesis in response to abiotic stresses, compared with intolerant plants (Kusano et al 2008;Gill and Tuteja 2010). In Lupinus luteus (a droughttolerant species), Put and Spd were accumulated in leaves in osmotic and salt-stress conditions (Legocka and Kluk 2005).…”

The Chloroplast Triggers Developmental Reprogramming When MUTS HOMOLOG1 Is Suppressed in Plants

“…The antioxidants ascorbate and a-tocopherols were increased, together with the stress-responsive flavones apigenin, apigenin-7-O-glucoside, isovitexin, kaempferol 3-O-b-glucoside, luteolin-7-O-glucoside, and vitexin. In Arabidopsis, the response included an increase in oxidized glutathione as well as sinapate, likely signaling induction of the phenylpropanoid pathway, together with the polyamines 1,3-diaminopropane, putrescine, and spermidine, which likely influence both stress tolerance and the observed delay in maturity transition (Gill and Tuteja, 2010).…”

Bacterial and Plant Signal Integration via D3-Type Cyclins Enhances Symptom Development in the Arabidopsis-Rhodococcus fasciansInteraction

“…Consequently, they are important regulators of growth and development (for recent reviews, see Alcázar et al, 2010;Takahashi and Kakehi, 2010). Besides the developmental modulation of polyamine levels, their concentration also increases when plants are challenged with abiotic or biotic agents, suggesting a protective role against environmental cues (Alcázar et al, 2010;Gill and Tuteja, 2010) and pathogens (Walters, 2003).…”