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Role of Phytomelatonin in Plant Tolerance Under Environmental Stress

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Stress-responsive Factors and Molecular Farming in Medicinal Plants

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Abstract

Phytomelatonin, a recently discovered unique novel plant growth regulator is widespread among plants with a broad range of phenotypic manifestations and plays several physio-morphological functions in plants. Though melatonin is derived from both animals and plants, it is manufactured inside the cell, especially in chloroplast and mitochondria from tryptophan amino acid. It is a versatile signaling molecule that potentially triggers a sequence of events required to reduce stress conditions in plants. It is an evolutionary conserved pleiotropic bioprotectant that promotes stress tolerance in plants by directly scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) or reactive nitrogen species (RNS) due to various physiochemical (heat, cold, water deficit, waterlogging, heavy metal, and several others) and biological (viral, bacterial, and fungal-mediated) environmental stresses. Along with this, phytomelatonin stimulates the free radical-antioxidant defense system, promotes the plant photosynthesis efficiency, enhances stomatal conductance, regulates genes related to stress resistance, and helps in protecting the plant from pathogenic infections by triggering the release of some stress-induced hormones such as jasmonic acid (JA), ethylene, salicylic acid (SA), etc. It induces transcription of genes associated with various physio-morphological processes including rooting, seedling germination, fruit ripening, senescence, and circadian rhythm. In this chapter, we have summarized the protective mechanism of phytomelatonin against diverse abiotic and biotic stress along with its uses for enhancing plant stress resistance.

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Acknowledgments

Author (Sandeep Kumar and Sachin Kumar) wish to acknowledge the academic support from UCOST, Dehradun (India).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany and Microbiology, Gurukula Kangri (Deemed to be University), Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India

    Sachin Kumar, Akanksha Pandey, Sandeep Kumar & Navneet Bithel

  2. Department of Biotechnology, School of Applied and Life Sciences, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

    Monika Singh, Sudhanshu Mishra & Minakshi Rajput

  3. School of Biosciences (SBS), Apeejay Stya University, Sohna, Gurugram, Haryana, India

    Sudhanshu Mishra

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  1. Sachin Kumar
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  2. Akanksha Pandey
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  3. Monika Singh
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  4. Sudhanshu Mishra
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  5. Sandeep Kumar
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  6. Navneet Bithel
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  7. Minakshi Rajput
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mulberry Physiology, Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute, Mysore, India

    Divya Singh

  2. Department of Botany, Mizoram University, Aizawl, India

    Amit Kumar Mishra

  3. Department of Plant Cell Biotechnology, Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, India

    Akhileshwar Kumar Srivastava

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Kumar, S. et al. (2023). Role of Phytomelatonin in Plant Tolerance Under Environmental Stress. In: Singh, D., Mishra, A.K., Srivastava, A.K. (eds) Stress-responsive Factors and Molecular Farming in Medicinal Plants . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4480-4_16

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