Signaling 'stressed-out' plants



A plant scientist at the University of Missouri has developed a new method of assessing plant stress at a time when heat, drought, and floods are among the many stressors that plants are currently dealing with as a result of extreme weather occurrences.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS), a group of chemicals that have previously been disparaged, are created by all organisms that use oxygen, including humans, animals, and plants. However, Ron Mittler at MU has discovered that ROS have a positive attribute: their function as a communication signal that might reveal whether plants are stressed.

According to Mittler, who has a position at the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources, "when stresses from heat and drought are coupled together, plants don't have ground water to draw from, so they block the stomata [leaf pores], and this makes the leaves particularly hot." "This is why a plant exposed to both heat and drought will experience substantially greater leaf temperatures than a plant that is only exposed to heat. The difference, which can range from two to four degrees, can be the difference between life and death."

Crop loss is likewise correlated with plant stress; however, prior analytical study on the topic has mainly concentrated on how crops respond to a single stressor. However, Mittler warned that if the number of stressors rises to three to six, the likelihood of a plant surviving would significantly drop. He emphasized that controlling ROS levels is crucial. A healthy amount of ROS can be thought of as safe for life, but either too much or too little can be harmful.

Mittler, who was born and reared in Israel, always dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. But before to enrolling at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he recalls working in an agricultural lab for a summer as an undergraduate student in the late 1980s, where he became "hooked" on science and, specifically, the function of ROS in plants. Since then, Mittler has been researching ROS.

We were attempting to figure out why some cell lines were more resistant to salt than others at the time, he added. "My first ever research issue in science was that one. However, I soon began working on desert plants before moving on to ROS and blue-green algae."

Source: University of Missouri-Columbia

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