Defective molecular signaling in plants helps them survive in a salty medium

A RIKEN-led team has found that genetic changes that almost completely disrupt a natural signaling system in plants can make plants more tolerant to high salt levels. This discovery could help to develop new strategies for enabling crop plants to thrive in regions of high salinity, which is a growing problem in many places in the world.

According to Mostafa Abdelrahman of the RIKEN Center for sustainable Resource Science, salinity is a major threat to modern agriculture.

Plants reprogram their metabolism in order to cope with high salinity levels. How plants regulate cellular processes has not been understood.

Abdelrahman and his co-workers have found that cellular signaling molecule known as cytokinins play a key role in regulating the metabolism that control the levels of some metabolites that impart tolerance to salinity.

Two sets of genes coding for proteins that are involved in cytokinin signaling were the focus of the research. transcriptomics and metabolomics were used to tease out the connection between the two. Transcriptomics is the analysis of entire transcripts produced by the genome in order to identify gene-expression profiles. Meetingabolomics involves analyzing the levels of a wide range of metabolites in a cell.

The researchers found that the levels of some metabolites in the plant were altered by the changes in the normal signaling processes performed by the cytokinins.

The role of the cytokinins in regulating the response to environmental stresses may lead to new approaches for fighting the problem of increasing salinity in soils worldwide.

The leader of the team, who is also at CSRS, notes that genetic manipulation of cytokinin signaling might provide a promising avenue for developing salt tolerant crops to help ensure global food security in this era of climate crisis.

The team plans to investigate the genetic manipulation of cytokinin signaling in major cereals using genome editing as a promising strategy for developing salt tolerant cereals while maintaining superior productivity.

More information: Mostafa Abdelrahman et al, Defective cytokinin signaling reprograms lipid and flavonoid gene-to-metabolite networks to mitigate high salinity in Arabidopsis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2105021118 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Citation: Defective molecular signaling in plants helps them survive in a salty medium (2022, March 10) retrieved 10 March 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-03-defective-molecular-survive-salty-medium.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.