Salicylic Acid Treatment and Its Effect on Seed Yield and Seed Molecular Composition of Pisum sativum under Abiotic Stress

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 24; no. 6; p. 5454
• Main Authors: Berková, Veronika, Berka, Miroslav, Kameniarová, Michaela, Kopecká, Romana, Kuzmenko, Marharyta, Shejbalová, Šarlota, Abramov, Dmytro, Čičmanec, Petr, Frejlichová, Lucie, Jan, Novák, Brzobohatý, Břetislav, Černý, Martin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 13-03-2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; Abscisic acid; Biosynthesis; Calcium-binding protein; Calmodulin; Chemical composition; Chromatin; Crop yield; Drought; Enzymes; Experiments; field; Flowering; Heat; Heat stress; lipidome; Lipids; Metabolism; metabolome; Molecular modelling; Pisum sativum; Pisum sativum - metabolism; Plants (botany); Plants - metabolism; Polyamines; Proteins; proteome; Proteomes; Salicylic acid; Salicylic Acid - metabolism; Salicylic Acid - pharmacology; seed development; Seeds; Seeds - metabolism; Stress, Physiological; Threonine synthase; heat stress; field; yield; seed development; lipidome; stress attenuation; metabolome; phytohormone; proteome
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms24065454

The reproductive stage of plant development has the most critical impact on yield. Flowering is highly sensitive to abiotic stress, and increasing temperatures and drought harm crop yields. Salicylic acid is a phytohormone that regulates flowering and promotes stress resilience in plants. However, the exact molecular mechanisms and the level of protection are far from understood and seem to be species-specific. Here, the effect of salicylic acid was tested in a field experiment with
exposed to heat stress. Salicylic acid was administered at two different stages of flowering, and its effect on the yield and composition of the harvested seeds was followed. Plants treated with salicylic acid produced larger seed pods, and a significant increase in dry weight was found for the plants with a delayed application of salicylic acid. The analyses of the seed proteome, lipidome, and metabolome did not show any negative impact of salicylic treatment on seed composition. Identified processes that could be responsible for the observed improvement in seed yields included an increase in polyamine biosynthesis, accumulation of storage lipids and lysophosphatidylcholines, a higher abundance of components of chromatin regulation, calmodulin-like protein, and threonine synthase, and indicated a decrease in sensitivity to abscisic acid signaling.