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The role of methane in plant physiology: a review

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Abstract

Methane (CH4), one of the most important greenhouse gases, has conventionally been considered as a physiologic inert gas. However, this perspective has been challenged by the observation that CH4 has diverse biological functions in animals, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-apoptosis. Meanwhile, it has now been identified as a possible candidate of gaseous signaling molecule in plants, although its biosynthetic and metabolic pathways as well as the mechanism(s) of CH4 signaling have not fully understood yet. This paper aims to review the available evidence for the biological roles of CH4 in regulating plant physiology. Although currently available reports do not fully support the notion of CH4 as a gasotransmitter, they do show that CH4 might be produced by an aerobic, non-microbial pathway from plants, and plays important roles in enhancing plant tolerance against abiotic stresses, such as salinity, drought, heavy metal exposure, and promoting root development, as well as delaying senescence and browning. Further results showed that CH4 could interact with reactive oxygen species (ROS), other gaseous signaling molecules [e.g., nitric oxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrogen sulfide (H2S)], and glutathione (GSH). These reports thus support the idea that plant-produced CH4 might be a component of a survival strategy of plants. Finally, the possibility of CH4 application in agriculture is preliminarily discussed.

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Integrated from Liu et al. (2015); Liu and Whitman (2008)

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31572116 and 31771696) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20181317). We would like to thank Dr. Evan Evans (University of Tasmania; tassiebeerdr@gmail.com) for the English editing of this paper.

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  1. Laboratory Center of Life Sciences, College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China

    Longna Li, Siqi Wei & Wenbiao Shen

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  1. Longna Li
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  2. Siqi Wei
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LL, SW, and WS wrote and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wenbiao Shen.

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Li, L., Wei, S. & Shen, W. The role of methane in plant physiology: a review. Plant Cell Rep 39, 171–179 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-019-02478-y

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