Recent advances in salt stress biology – a review

Town Mohammad Hussain¹*, Thummala Chandrasekhar ², Mahamed Hazara³ , Zafar Sultan⁴, Brhan Khiar Saleh¹ and Ghanta Rama Gopal²

¹Department of Horticulture, Hamelmalo Agricultural College, Keren, P.O. Box 397, Eritrea, North East Africa.

²Department of Botany, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati-517 502, Andhra Pradesh, India.

³School of Life Sciences, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Skövde, Skövde, Sweden.

⁴Department of Plant Protection, Hamelmalo College of Agriculture, Keren, P.O. Box 397, Eritrea, North East Africa.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: md_hussain_2000@yahoo.com. Tel: 002917193290. Fax: 002911401589.

Accepted 11 February, 2008

Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses that adversely affects crop productivity and quality. Hence developing salt tolerant crops is essential for sustaining food production. Understanding of the molecular basis of salt stress signaling and tolerance mechanisms are essential for breeding and genetic engineering of salt tolerance in crop plants. The modern approaches being used to impart salt tolerance involves exploitation of natural genetic variations and/or the generation of transgenic plants. This review discusses the challenges and opportunities provided by recently developed molecular tools in the development of salt tolerant crops.

Key words: Soil salinity, plasma membrane antiporter (AtSOS1), AtHKT1, vacuolar antiporter (AtNHX1), compatible solutes, reactive oxygen species (ROS), antioxidants.