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...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2017
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5541053 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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