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Moderate NaCl alleviates osmotic stress in Lycium ruthenicum

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Abstract

Lycium ruthenicum is a salt-accumulating xerophytic species with excellent adaptability to adverse environments. Previous studies showed that a certain amount of NaCl addition promoted plant growth. To reveal the mechanism underlying the positive effect of Na+ addition on plant growth and investigate the role of moderate NaCl in L. ruthenicum drought resistance, the growth, photosynthesis, and K+ and Na+ transport-related genes were assessed after being subjected to different NaCl (0–400 mM) treatments and osmotic stresses (− 0.5 MPa) in the presence or absence of additional NaCl (50 mM). Compared to the control, 50 mM NaCl strongly boosted the fresh weight, dry weight, relative growth rate, and significantly increased the Na+ concentrations in roots, stems, and leaves; the K+ concentrations in roots and leaves also increased significantly. Furthermore, 50 mM NaCl sharply up-regulated the expression of LrSOS1 in roots and LrNHX and LrVP1 in leaves, while LrHKT1 was down-regulated in roots, this was the reason why a high quantity of Na+ accumulated in leaves. LrAKT1 was up-regulated in roots, and LrSKOR decreased first and then increased in roots, whereas LrSKOR in leaves remained stable and slightly up-regulated, thereby absorbing a large amount of K+ through LrAKT1 and transporting to the leaf through LrSKOR. Moreover, external NaCl apparently alleviated the inhibition of osmotic stress in plant growth, and significantly increased Na+ and K+ concentrations. It is speculated that moderate NaCl treatment could significantly improve the Na+ and K+ concentrations, thus enhancing the osmotic regulation ability of plants, and then improve the photosynthesis and water status of L. ruthenicum.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32060376 and 32060235), the Natural Science Foundation of Gansu Province (Grant No. 20JR5RA093 and 20JR5RA097).

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  1. State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Desertification and Aeolian Sand Disaster Combating, Gansu Desert Control Research Institute, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Jing Hu, Xiaoke Hu, Huiwen Zhang & Qiushi Yu

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Correspondence to Jing Hu.

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10725_2021_754_MOESM1_ESM.tif

Supplementary Fig. S1 Effects of different concentration of NaCl treatments on the growth of L. ruthenicum (TIF 25656 KB)

Supplementary Fig. S2 Effects of different osmotic stress treatments on the growth of L. ruthenicum (TIF 12718 KB)

10725_2021_754_MOESM3_ESM.docx

Supplementary Table S1 Primer sequences used in this study. Real-time quantitative PCR of LrSKOR, LrAKT1, LrHKT1, LrSOS1, LrNHX, LrAPV1, LrLEF1α was performed with the specific primers P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P9, P10, P11, P12, P13 and P14 (DOCX 18 KB)

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Hu, J., Hu, X., Zhang, H. et al. Moderate NaCl alleviates osmotic stress in Lycium ruthenicum. Plant Growth Regul 96, 25–35 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-021-00754-0

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