Skip to main content
Log in

Metabolomics-mediated elucidation of rice responses to salt stress

  • Review
  • Published:
Planta Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Main conclusion

Role of salinity responsive metabolites of rice and its wild species has been discussed.

Abstract

Salinity stress is one of the important environmental stresses that severely affects rice productivity. Although, several vital physio-biochemical and molecular responses have been activated in rice under salinity stress which were well described in literatures, the mechanistic role of salt stress and microbes-induced metabolites to overcome salt stress in rice are less studied. Nevertheless, over the years, metabolomic studies have allowed a comprehensive analyses of rice salt stress responses. Hence, we review the salt stress-triggered alterations of various metabolites in rice and discuss their significant roles toward salinity tolerance. Some of the metabolites such as serotonin, salicylic acid, ferulic acid and gentisic acid may act as signaling molecules to activate different downstream salt-tolerance mechanisms; whereas, the other compounds such as amino acids, sugars and organic acids directly act as protective agents to maintain osmotic balance and scavenger of reactive oxygen species during the salinity stress. The quantity, type, tissues specificity and time of accumulation of metabolites induced by salinity stress vary between salt-sensitive and tolerant rice genotypes and thus, contribute to their different degrees of salt tolerance. Moreover, few tolerance metabolites such as allantoin, serotonin and melatonin induce unique pathways for activation of defence mechanisms in salt-tolerant varieties of rice, suggesting their potential roles as the universal biomarkers for salt tolerance. Therefore, these metabolites can be applied exogenously to the sensitive genotypes of rice to enhance their performance under salt stress. Furthermore, the microbes of rhizosphere also participated in rice salt tolerance either directly or indirectly by regulating their metabolic pathways. Thus, this review for the first time offers valuable and comprehensive insights into salt-induced spatio-temporal and genotype-specific metabolites in different genotypes of rice which provide a reference point to analyze stress–gene–metabolite relationships for the biomarker designing in rice. Further, it can also help to decipher several metabolic systems associated with salt tolerance in rice which will be useful in developing salt-tolerance cultivars by conventional breeding/genetic engineering/exogenous application of metabolites.

Graphical abstract

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

In the present review no data was generated, thus does not meet the data availability criteria.

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

NR acknowledge the financial support from Department of Biotechnology (DBT), India for providing financial support in the form of DBT-JRF fellowship, New Delhi. Authors are also grateful to Director, NIPB, New Delhi for providing the facility.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tapan Kumar Mondal.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rajkumari, N., Chowrasia, S., Nishad, J. et al. Metabolomics-mediated elucidation of rice responses to salt stress. Planta 258, 111 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-023-04258-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-023-04258-1

Keywords

Navigation