title: New Insights on Plant Salt Tolerance Mechanisms and Their Potential Use for Breeding.
abstract: Soil salinization is a major threat to agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions, where water scarcity and inadequate drainage of irrigated lands severely reduce crop yield. Salt accumulation inhibits plant growth and reduces the ability to uptake water and nutrients, leading to osmotic or water-deficit stress. Salt is also causing injury of the young photosynthetic leaves and acceleration of their senescence, as the Na+cation is toxic when accumulating in cell cytosol resulting in ionic imbalance and toxicity of transpiring leaves. To cope with salt stress, plants have evolved mainly two types of tolerance mechanisms based on either limiting the entry of salt by the roots, or controlling its concentration and distribution. Understanding the overall control of Na+accumulation and functional studies of genes involved in transport processes, will provide a new opportunity to improve the salinity tolerance of plants relevant to food security in arid regions. A better understanding of these tolerance mechanisms can be used to breed crops with improved yield performance under salinity stress. Moreover, associations of cultures with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi could serve as an alternative and sustainable strategy to increase crop yields in salt-affected fields.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Biotechnologie et Amélioration des Plantes, Centre de Biotechnologie de SfaxSfax, Tunisia; Institut Supérieur de Biotechnologie, Université de SfaxSfax, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Moez
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hanin
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Biotechnologie et Amélioration des Plantes, Centre de Biotechnologie de SfaxSfax, Tunisia; Institut Supérieur de Biotechnologie, Université de SfaxSfax, Tunisia.
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ebel
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire mixte international Adaptation des Plantes et microorganismes associés aux Stress EnvironnementauxDakar, Senegal; Laboratoire Commun de Microbiologie, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement/Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles/Université Cheikh Anta DiopDakar, Senegal.
authors.forename: Mariama
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ngom
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire mixte international Adaptation des Plantes et microorganismes associés aux Stress EnvironnementauxDakar, Senegal; Laboratoire Commun de Microbiologie, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement/Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles/Université Cheikh Anta DiopDakar, Senegal; Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Unités Mixtes de Recherche, Diversité, Adaptation, Développement des Plantes (DIADE), MontpellierFrance.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Laplaze
authors.affiliation: Department of Aridland, College of Food and Agriculture, United Arab Emirates University Al Ain, UAE.
authors.forename: Khaled
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Masmoudi
keywords: beneficial soil microorganisms; detoxification pathways; engineering of plant salinity tolerance; salinity; tolerance mechanisms; transport of sodium