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Review
. 2021 Jan 27;10(2):243.
doi: 10.3390/plants10020243.

Morphological, Physiological and Molecular Markers for Salt-Stressed Plants

Aigerim Soltabayeva  1 , Assel Ongaltay  1 , John Okoth Omondi  2 , Sudhakar Srivastava  3
Affiliations
Review

Morphological, Physiological and Molecular Markers for Salt-Stressed Plants

Aigerim Soltabayeva et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Plant growth and development is adversely affected by different kind of stresses. One of the major abiotic stresses, salinity, causes complex changes in plants by influencing the interactions of genes. The modulated genetic regulation perturbs metabolic balance, which may alter plant's physiology and eventually causing yield losses. To improve agricultural output, researchers have concentrated on identification, characterization and selection of salt tolerant varieties and genotypes, although, most of these varieties are less adopted for commercial production. Nowadays, phenotyping plants through Machine learning (deep learning) approaches that analyze the images of plant leaves to predict biotic and abiotic damage on plant leaves have increased. Here, we review salinity stress related markers on molecular, physiological and morphological levels for crops such as maize, rice, ryegrass, tomato, salicornia, wheat and model plant, Arabidopsis. The combined analysis of data from stress markers on different levels together with image data are important for understanding the impact of salt stress on plants.

Keywords: antioxidant; chlorophyll; molecular markers; morphological markers; physiological markers; salinity stress; stress tolerance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of salinity level on relative biomass changes in crop plants. The relative dry weight compared to control was used as a growth parameter. The irrigation of soil by saline water (NaCl) from 0–300 mM was used salt application. Sources of the data were: A. thaliana: [25,32,41,42], wheat: (Triticum aestivum) [30,36,43,44], rice (Oryza sativa): [31,33], maize (Zea mays): [24,34,45,46,47], tomato: (Solanum lycopersicum): [35,48,49], sunflower: (T Helianthus annutis): [50,51,52], ryegrass (Lolium perenne): [53], salicornia: [37,38,39].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Changes in germination rate of crop plants at different levels of salt stress. Germination rate after 7 days plants grown under different level of NaCl concentration. Data presented for A. thaliana [54,55,56,57], wheat (Triticum aestivum) [24,47,58,59], rice (Oryza sativa) [31,60], maize (Zea mays) [46,61,62], tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) [63,64,65], sun flower (T Helianthus annutis) [50,66], salicornia [39,67].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Scheme of sequence of changes at different levels in plants triggered by salt stress.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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