Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression

Drought represents one of the most relevant abiotic stress affecting growth and yield of crop plants. In order to improve the agricultural productivity within the limited water and land resources, it is mandatory to increase crop yields in presence of unfavorable environmental stresses. The use of b...

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Autores principales: Santaniello, Antonietta, Scartazza, Andrea, Gresta, Francesco, Loreti, Elena, Biasone, Alessandro, Di Tommaso, Donatella, Piaggesi, Alberto, Perata, Pierdomenico
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541053/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28824691
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.01362
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author Santaniello, Antonietta
Scartazza, Andrea
Gresta, Francesco
Loreti, Elena
Biasone, Alessandro
Di Tommaso, Donatella
Piaggesi, Alberto
Perata, Pierdomenico
author_facet Santaniello, Antonietta
Scartazza, Andrea
Gresta, Francesco
Loreti, Elena
Biasone, Alessandro
Di Tommaso, Donatella
Piaggesi, Alberto
Perata, Pierdomenico
author_sort Santaniello, Antonietta
collection PubMed
description Drought represents one of the most relevant abiotic stress affecting growth and yield of crop plants. In order to improve the agricultural productivity within the limited water and land resources, it is mandatory to increase crop yields in presence of unfavorable environmental stresses. The use of biostimulants, often containing seaweed extracts, represents one of the options for farmers willing to alleviate abiotic stress consequences on crops. In this work, we investigated the responses of Arabidopsis plants treated with an extract from the brown alga Ascophyllum nodosum (ANE), under drought stress conditions, demonstrating that ANE positively influences Arabidopsis survival. Pre-treatment with ANE induced a partial stomatal closure, associated with changes in the expression levels of genes involved in ABA-responsive and antioxidant system pathways. The pre-activation of these pathways results in a stronger ability of ANE-treated plants to maintain a better photosynthetic performance compared to untreated plants throughout the dehydration period, combined with a higher capacity to dissipate the excess of energy as heat in the reaction centers of photosystem II. Our results suggest that drought stressed plants treated with ANE are able to maintain a strong stomatal control and relatively higher values of both water use efficiency (WUE) and mesophyll conductance during the last phase of dehydration. Simultaneously, the activation of a pre-induced antioxidant defense system, in combination with a more efficient energy dissipation mechanism, prevents irreversible damages to the photosynthetic apparatus. In conclusion, pre-treatment with ANE is effective to acclimate plants to the incoming stress, promoting an increased WUE and dehydration tolerance.
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spelling pubmed-55410532017-08-18 Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression Santaniello, Antonietta Scartazza, Andrea Gresta, Francesco Loreti, Elena Biasone, Alessandro Di Tommaso, Donatella Piaggesi, Alberto Perata, Pierdomenico Front Plant Sci Plant Science Drought represents one of the most relevant abiotic stress affecting growth and yield of crop plants. In order to improve the agricultural productivity within the limited water and land resources, it is mandatory to increase crop yields in presence of unfavorable environmental stresses. The use of biostimulants, often containing seaweed extracts, represents one of the options for farmers willing to alleviate abiotic stress consequences on crops. In this work, we investigated the responses of Arabidopsis plants treated with an extract from the brown alga Ascophyllum nodosum (ANE), under drought stress conditions, demonstrating that ANE positively influences Arabidopsis survival. Pre-treatment with ANE induced a partial stomatal closure, associated with changes in the expression levels of genes involved in ABA-responsive and antioxidant system pathways. The pre-activation of these pathways results in a stronger ability of ANE-treated plants to maintain a better photosynthetic performance compared to untreated plants throughout the dehydration period, combined with a higher capacity to dissipate the excess of energy as heat in the reaction centers of photosystem II. Our results suggest that drought stressed plants treated with ANE are able to maintain a strong stomatal control and relatively higher values of both water use efficiency (WUE) and mesophyll conductance during the last phase of dehydration. Simultaneously, the activation of a pre-induced antioxidant defense system, in combination with a more efficient energy dissipation mechanism, prevents irreversible damages to the photosynthetic apparatus. In conclusion, pre-treatment with ANE is effective to acclimate plants to the incoming stress, promoting an increased WUE and dehydration tolerance. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5541053/ /pubmed/28824691 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.01362 Text en Copyright © 2017 Santaniello, Scartazza, Gresta, Loreti, Biasone, Di Tommaso, Piaggesi and Perata. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Plant Science
Santaniello, Antonietta
Scartazza, Andrea
Gresta, Francesco
Loreti, Elena
Biasone, Alessandro
Di Tommaso, Donatella
Piaggesi, Alberto
Perata, Pierdomenico
Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression
title Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression
title_full Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression
title_fullStr Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression
title_full_unstemmed Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression
title_short Ascophyllum nodosum Seaweed Extract Alleviates Drought Stress in Arabidopsis by Affecting Photosynthetic Performance and Related Gene Expression
title_sort ascophyllum nodosum seaweed extract alleviates drought stress in arabidopsis by affecting photosynthetic performance and related gene expression
topic Plant Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541053/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28824691
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.01362
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