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Ultraviolet (UV)-B priming can boost the abiotic stress tolerance of plants by activating stress-responsive pathways. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the persistence of priming imprints and cross-tolerance inducing effects of UV-B priming in abiotic stress-sensitive rice (Oryza sativa L. 'Aiswarya') when subjected to various abiotic stressors (NaCl, PEG, and UV-B). The UV-B priming of rice seeds and seedlings effectively enhanced photosynthetic efficiency, antioxidant machinery activity, and antioxidative enzyme production, especially when seedlings were exposed to NaCl, followed by UV-B and PEG. The ability of UV-B priming to induce cross-tolerance against NaCl stress was substantiated by the greater antioxidant activity of the primed and NaCl-stressed seedlings. The greater performance and stress tolerance of the seedlings from UV-B-primed seeds were attributed to the carryover of priming imprints from seeds into the seedlings. Indeed, UV-B priming activated the antioxidant systems of the seedlings, even under non-stress conditions, and resulted in greater responses upon subsequent stress exposure, which suggested that preparedness for encountering imminent stress was attained by UV-B priming in a stress-sensitive rice.

Resurrection plants are a small but diverse group of land plants characterized by their tolerance to extreme drought or desiccation. They have the unique ability to survive months to years without water, lose most of the free water in their vegetative tissues, fall into anabiosis, and, upon rewatering, quickly regain normal activity. Thus, they are fundamentally different from other drought-surviving plants such as succulents or ephemerals, which cope with drought by maintaining higher steady state water potential or via a short life cycle, respectively. This review describes the unique physiological and molecular adaptations of resurrection plants enabling them to withstand long periods of desiccation. The recent transcriptome analysis of Craterostigma plantagineum and Haberlea rhodopensis under drought, desiccation, and subsequent rehydration revealed common genetic pathways with other desiccation-tolerant species as well as unique genes that might contribute to the outstanding desiccation tolerance of the two resurrection species. While some of the molecular responses appear to be common for both drought stress and desiccation, resurrection plants also possess genes that are highly induced or repressed during desiccation with no apparent sequence homologies to genes of other species. Thus, resurrection plants are potential sources for gene discovery. Further proteome and metabolome analyses of the resurrection plants contributed to a better understanding of molecular mechanisms that are involved in surviving severe water loss. Understanding the cellular mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in this unique group of plants may enable future molecular improvement of drought tolerance in crop plants.

In the present study, three closely related Linderniaceae species which differ in their sensitivity to desiccation are compared in response to light and oxidative stress defence. Lindernia brevidens, a desiccation-tolerant plant, displayed intense purple pigmentation in leaves under long-day conditions in contrast to Craterostigma plantagineum (desiccation tolerant) and Lindernia subracemosa (desiccation sensitive). The intense pigmentation in leaves does not affect the desiccation tolerance behaviour but seems to be related to oxidative stress protection. Green leaves of short-day and purple leaves of long-day plants provided suitable material for comparing basic photosynthetic parameters. An increase in non-photochemical quenching in purple leaves appears to prevent photoinhibition. Treatment with methyl viologen decreased the photochemical activities in both long-day and short-day plants but long-day plants which accumulate anthocyanins maintained a higher non-photochemical quenching than short-day plants. No differences were seen in the expression of desiccation-induced proteins and proteins involved in carbohydrate metabolism in short-day and long-day grown plants, whereas differences were observed in the expression of transcripts encoding chloroplast-localised stress proteins and transcripts encoding antioxidant enzymes. While the expression of genes encoding antioxidant enzymes were either constitutive or up-regulated during desiccation in C. plantagineum, the expression was down-regulated in L. subracemosa. RNA expression analysis indicated degradation of mRNA during desiccation in L. subracemosa but not in desiccation tolerant species. These results indicate that a better oxidative stress management and mRNA stability are correlated with desiccation tolerance.

Resurrection plants are regarded as excellent models to study the mechanisms associated with desiccation tolerance. During the past years tremendous progress has been made in understanding the phenomenon of desiccation tolerance in resurrection plants, but many questions are open concerning the mechanisms enabling these plants to survive desiccation. The photosynthetic apparatus is very sensitive to reactive oxygen species mediated injury during desiccation and must be maintained or quickly repaired upon rehydration. The photosynthetic apparatus is a primary source of generating reactive oxygen species. The unique ability of plants to withstand the oxidative stress imposed by reactive oxygen species during desiccation depends on the production of antioxidants. The present review considers the overall strategies and the mechanisms involved in the desiccation tolerance in the first part and will focus on the effects on photosynthesis, energy metabolism and antioxidative stress defenses in the second part.

The present study shows the importance of alternative oxidase (AOX) pathway in optimizing photosynthesis under high light (HL). The responses of photosynthesis and respiration were monitored as O(2) evolution and O(2) uptake in mesophyll protoplasts of pea pre-incubated under different light intensities. Under HL (3000 micromol m(-2) s(-1)), mesophyll protoplasts showed remarkable decrease in the rates of NaHCO(3)-dependent O(2) evolution (indicator of photosynthetic carbon assimilation), while decrease in the rates of respiratory O(2) uptake were marginal. While the capacity of AOX pathway increased significantly by two fold under HL, the capacity of cytochrome oxidase (COX) pathway decreased by >50% compared with capacities under darkness and normal light (NL). Further, the total cellular levels of pyruvate and malate, which are assimilatory products of active photosynthesis and stimulators of AOX activity, were increased remarkably parallel to the increase in AOX protein under HL. Upon restriction of AOX pathway using salicylhydroxamic acid (SHAM), the observed decrease in NaHCO(3)-dependent O(2) evolution or p-benzoquinone (BQ)-dependent O(2) evolution [indicator of photosystem II (PSII) activity] and the increase in total cellular levels of pyruvate and malate were further aggravated/promoted under HL. The significance of raised malate and pyruvate levels in activation of AOX protein/AOX pathway, which in turn play an important role in dissipating excess chloroplastic reducing equivalents and sustenance of photosynthetic carbon assimilation to balance the effects of HL stress on photosynthesis, was depicted as a model.

Plant respiration is characterized by two pathways for electron transfer to O(2), namely the cytochrome pathway (CP) that is linked to ATP production, and the alternative pathway (AP), where electrons from ubiquinol are directly transferred to O(2) via an alternative oxidase (AOX) without concomitant ATP production. This latter pathway is well suited to dispose of excess electrons in the light, leading to optimized photosynthetic performance. We have characterized T-DNA-insertion mutant lines of Arabidopsis thaliana that do not express the major isoform, AOX1A. In standard growth conditions, these plants did not show any phenotype, but restriction of electron flow through CP by antimycin A, which induces AOX1A expression in the wild-type, led to an increased expression of AOX1D in leaves of the aox1a-knockout mutant. Despite the increased presence of the AOX1D isoform in the mutant, antimycin A caused inhibition of photosynthesis, increased ROS, and ultimately resulted in amplified membrane leakage and necrosis when compared to the wild-type, which was only marginally affected by the inhibitor. It thus appears that AOX1D was unable to fully compensate for the loss of AOX1A when electron flow via the CP is restricted. A combination of inhibition studies, coupled to metabolite profiling and targeted expression analysis of the P-protein of glycine decarboxylase complex (GDC), suggests that the aox1a mutants attempt to increase their capacity for photorespiration. However, given their deficiency, it is intriguing that increase in expression neither of AOX1D nor of GDC could fully compensate for the lack of AOX1A to optimize photosynthesis when treated with antimycin A. We suggest that the aox1a mutants can further be used to substantiate the current models concerning the influence of mitochondrial redox on photosynthetic performance and gene expression.

Most higher plants are unable to survive desiccation to an air-dried state. An exception is a small group of vascular angiosperm plants, termed resurrection plants. They have evolved unique mechanisms of desiccation tolerance and thus can tolerate severe water loss, and mostly adjust their water content with the relative humidity in the environment. Desiccation tolerance is a complex phenomenon and depends on the regulated expression of numerous genes during dehydration and subsequent rehydration. Most of the resurrection plants have a large genome and are difficult to transform which makes them unsuitable for genetic approaches. However, technical advances have made it possible to analyze changes in gene expression on a large-scale. These approaches together with comparative studies with non-desiccation tolerant plants provide novel insights into the molecular processes required for desiccation tolerance and will shed light on identification of orphan genes with unknown functions. Here, we review large-scale recent transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic studies that have been performed in desiccation tolerant plants and discuss how these studies contribute to understanding the molecular basis of desiccation tolerance.

Salinity is one of the major abiotic stress factors that drastically reduces agricultural productivity. In natural environments salinity often occurs together with other stresses such as dehydration, light stress or high temperature. Plants cope with ionic stress, dehydration and osmotic stress caused by high salinity through a variety of mechanisms at different levels involving physiological, biochemical and molecular processes. Halophytic plants exist successfully in stressful saline environments, but most of the terrestrial plants including all crop plants are glycophytes with varying levels of salt tolerance. An array of physiological, structural and biochemical adaptations in halophytes make them suitable models to study the molecular mechanisms associated with salinity tolerance. Comparative analysis of plants that differ in their abilities to tolerate salinity will aid in better understanding the phenomenon of salinity tolerance. The halophyte Thellungiella salsuginea has been used as a model for studying plant salt tolerance. In this review, T. salsuginea and the glycophyte Arabidopsis thaliana are compared with regards to their biochemical, physiological and molecular responses to salinity. In addition recent developments are presented for improvement of salinity tolerance in glycophytic plants using genes from halophytes.