Nitric oxide in plants: an insight on redox activity and responses toward abiotic stress signaling

ABSTRACT

Plants, as sessile organisms, are subjected to diverse abiotic stresses, including salinity, desiccation, metal toxicity, thermal fluctuations, and hypoxia at different phases of plant growth. Plants can activate messenger molecules to initiate a signaling cascade of response toward environmental stresses that results in either cell death or plant acclimation. Nitric oxide (NO) is a small gaseous redox-active molecule that exhibits a plethora of physiological functions in growth, development, flowering, senescence, stomata closure and responses to environmental stresses. It can also facilitate alteration in protein function and reprogram the gene profiling by direct or indirect interaction with different target molecules. The bioactivity of NO can be manifested through different redox-based protein modifications including S-nitrosylation, protein nitration, and metal nitrosylation in plants. Although there has been considerable progress in the role of NO in regulating stress signaling, still the physiological mechanisms regarding the abiotic stress tolerance in plants remain unclear. This review summarizes recent advances in understanding the emerging knowledge regarding NO function in plant tolerance against abiotic stresses. The manuscript also highlighted the importance of NO as an abiotic stress modulator and developed a rational design for crop cultivation under a stress environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Nitric oxide
• abiotic stress
• antioxidant defense system
• reactive oxygen species
• protein modification and redox homeostasis

Acknowledgments

Prof. G.S. Shekhawat thankfully acknowledges the SAIA for providing fellowship under the National Scholarship Program of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia, and the research in JJ lab was supported by VEGA-2-0173-21 and APVV-16-0398 grants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions statement

KK prepared the manuscript; GSS, SP and JJ read and corrected the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.