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Review
. 2021 Jun 11;10(6):520.
doi: 10.3390/biology10060520.

The Role of Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria in Alleviating the Adverse Effects of Drought on Plants

Khaled Abdelaal  1 , Muneera AlKahtani  2 , Kotb Attia  3 , Yaser Hafez  1 , Lóránt Király  4 , András Künstler  4
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria in Alleviating the Adverse Effects of Drought on Plants

Khaled Abdelaal et al. Biology (Basel). .

Abstract

Plant growth-promoting bacteria play an essential role in enhancing the physical, chemical and biological characters of soils by facilitating nutrient uptake and water flow, especially under abiotic stress conditions, which are major constrains to agricultural development and production. Drought is one of the most harmful abiotic stress and perhaps the most severe problem facing agricultural sustainability, leading to a severe shortage in crop productivity. Drought affects plant growth by causing hormonal and membrane stability perturbations, nutrient imbalance and physiological disorders. Furthermore, drought causes a remarkable decrease in leaf numbers, relative water content, sugar yield, root yield, chlorophyll a and b and ascorbic acid concentrations. However, the concentrations of total phenolic compounds, electrolyte leakage, lipid peroxidation, amounts of proline, and reactive oxygen species are considerably increased because of drought stress. This negative impact of drought can be eliminated by using plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB). Under drought conditions, application of PGPB can improve plant growth by adjusting hormonal balance, maintaining nutrient status and producing plant growth regulators. This role of PGPB positively affects physiological and biochemical characteristics, resulting in increased leaf numbers, sugar yield, relative water content, amounts of photosynthetic pigments and ascorbic acid. Conversely, lipid peroxidation, electrolyte leakage and amounts of proline, total phenolic compounds and reactive oxygen species are decreased under drought in the presence of PGPB. The current review gives an overview on the impact of drought on plants and the pivotal role of PGPB in mitigating the negative effects of drought by enhancing antioxidant defense systems and increasing plant growth and yield to improve sustainable agriculture.

Keywords: antioxidant enzymes; chlorophylls; drought; phenols; plant growth-promoting bacteria.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effects of drought on barley leaves (transverse sections). (A) Control. (B) Plants irrigated once (D1), (C) plants irrigated twice (D2) (X 200). UE: upper epidermis, MT: mesophyll tissue, VB: vascular bundles, LE: lower epidermis, XT: xylem tissue, PhT: phloem tissue. (Hafez et al. [10]).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effects of drought on barley leaves (Scanning Electron Microscope image). (A) Control. (B) plants irrigated once. Bar = 10 μm, Bar = 50 μm. (Abdelaal et al. [2]).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Drought stress may cause excessive accumulation of ROS due to perturbations in photosynthesis, resulting in oxidative stress within plant cells. Drought-induced closure of stomata restricts carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake, causing overaccumulation of reduced photosynthetic electron transport components (e.g., NADPH) in chloroplasts and increased oxygenation of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP). This accelerates the production of glycolate. In peroxisomes, glycolate is converted to glyoxylate and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) by glycolate oxidase (GO), accounting for most of peroxisomal H2O2 production in green tissues of C3 plants. These processes also favor the chloroplastic accumulation of the ROS superoxide (O2•−), singlet oxygen (1O2) and H2O2 by the photosynthetic electron transport chain (PSI and PSII). H2O2 from chloroplasts and peroxisomes may be transferred to the cytoplasm, where massive oxidative stress and membrane lipid peroxidation may develop, especially due to the action of the H2O2-derived hydroxyl radical (OH•). Based on Noctor et al. [56] and Nadarajah [57].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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