Halophyte Improvement for a Salinized World

作者：Chengjiang Ruan, Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva, Kenneth Mopper, Pei Qin, Stanley Lutts · 发表于：Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences · 年份：2010 · DOI：10.1080/07352689.2010.524517 · 被引用次数：182 · 研究领域：Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance、Genetic Mapping and Diversity in Plants and Animals、Plant Molecular Biology Research

It is more important to improve the salt tolerance of crops in a salinized world with the situations of increasing populations, declining crop yields, and a decrease in agricultural lands. Attempts to produce salt-tolerant crops have involved the manipulation of existing crops through conventional breeding, genetic engineering and marker-assisted selection (MAS). However, these have, so far, not produced lines growing on highly saline water. Hence, the domestication of wild halophytes as crops appears to be a feasible way to develop agriculture in highly saline environments. In this review, at first, the assessment criteria of salt tolerance for halophytes are discussed. The traditional criteria for the classification of salinity in crops are less applicable to strong halophytes with cubic growth curves at higher salinities. Thus, realistic assessment criteria for halophytes should be evaluated at low and high salinity levels. Moreover, absolute growth rather than relative growth in fields during a crop's life cycle should be considered. Secondly, the use of metabolomics to understand the mechanisms by which halophytes respond to salt tolerance is highlighted as is the potential for metabolomics-assisted breeding of this group of plants. Metabolomics provides a better understanding of the changes in cellular metabolism induced by salt stress. Identification of metabolic quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with salt tolerance might provide a new method to aid the selectio...