Abstract
Drought is a major environmental threat to agricultural productivity and food security across the world. Therefore, addressing the detrimental effects of drought on vital crops like soybean has a significant impact on sustainable food production. Priming plants with organic compounds is now being considered as a promising technique for alleviating the negative effects of drought on plants. In the current study, we evaluated the protective functions of ethanol in enhancing soybean drought tolerance by examining the phenotype, growth attributes, and several physiological and biochemical mechanisms. Our results showed that foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content, all of which contributed to the improved growth performance of soybean under drought circumstances. Drought stress, on the other hand, caused significant accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde, as well as an increase of electrolyte leakage in the leaves, underpinning the evidence of oxidative stress and membrane damage in soybean plants. By comparison, exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden by boosting the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including peroxidase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase, and ascorbate peroxidase, and the content of total flavonoids in soybean leaves exposed to drought stress. Additionally, ethanol supplementation increased the contents of total soluble sugars and free amino acids in the leaves of drought-exposed plants, implying that ethanol likely employed these compounds for osmotic adjustment in soybean under water-shortage conditions. Together, our findings shed light on the ethanol-mediated protective mechanisms by which soybean plants coordinated different morphophysiological and biochemical responses in order to increase their drought tolerance.
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Claims 9
Claim · model-written summary
Foliar ethanol increased biomass and leaf area per trifoliate in drought-stressed soybean.
- Taxon
- soybean
Glycine maxe0 - Treatment
- ethanol (20 mM)e0
- Outcome
- biomass, leaf area per trifoliatee0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content”
e1“foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content”
Claim · model-written summary
Foliar ethanol increased gas exchange features and water-use-efficiency in drought-stressed soybean.
- Taxon
- soybeanGlycine maxe0
- Treatment
- ethanol (20 mM)e0
- Outcome
- gas exchange features, water-use-efficiencye0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content”
e1“foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content”
Claim · model-written summary
Foliar ethanol increased photosynthetic pigment contents and leaf relative water content in drought-stressed soybean.
- Taxon
- soybeanGlycine maxe0
- Treatment
- ethanol (20 mM)e0
- Outcome
- photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water contente0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content”
e1“foliar application of ethanol (20 mM) to drought-stressed soybean plants increased biomass, leaf area per trifoliate, gas exchange features, water-use-efficiency, photosynthetic pigment contents, and leaf relative water content”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought stress significantly accumulated reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde in soybean leaves.
- Taxon
- SoybeanGlycine maxt0
- Treatment
- Drought stresse0
- Outcome
- reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehydee0
- Direction
- accumulatione0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Drought stress, on the other hand, caused significant accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde”
e1“Drought stress, on the other hand, caused significant accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde”
t0“Soybean”
Claim · model-written summary
Drought stress increased electrolyte leakage in soybean leaves.
- Taxon
- SoybeanGlycine maxt0
- Treatment
- Drought stresse0
- Outcome
- electrolyte leakagee0
- Direction
- increasee0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Drought stress, on the other hand, caused significant accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde, as well as an increase of electrolyte leakage in the leaves”
e1“Drought stress, on the other hand, caused significant accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and malondialdehyde, as well as an increase of electrolyte leakage in the leaves”
t0“Soybean”
Claim · model-written summary
Exogenous ethanol boosted peroxidase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase and ascorbate peroxidase activities in drought-exposed soybean.
- Taxon
- SoybeanGlycine maxt0
- Treatment
- exogenous ethanole0
- Gene
- peroxidase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase, and ascorbate peroxidasee0
- Outcome
- activities of antioxidant enzymese0
- Direction
- boostinge0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden by boosting the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including peroxidase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase, and ascorbate peroxidase”
e1“exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden by boosting the activities of antioxidant enzymes, including peroxidase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase, and ascorbate peroxidase”
t0“Soybean”
Claim · model-written summary
Exogenous ethanol reduced ROS-induced oxidative burden in soybean.
- Taxon
- SoybeanGlycine maxt0
- Treatment
- exogenous ethanole0
- Outcome
- ROS-induced oxidative burdene0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden”
e1“exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden”
t0“Soybean”
Claim · model-written summary
Exogenous ethanol increased total flavonoids in drought-exposed soybean leaves.
- Taxon
- soybeanGlycine maxe0
- Treatment
- exogenous ethanole2
- Outcome
- content of total flavonoidse0
Not reportedComparatorDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the content of total flavonoids in soybean leaves exposed to drought stress”
e1“the content of total flavonoids in soybean leaves exposed to drought stress”
e2“exogenous ethanol reduced the ROS-induced oxidative burden”
Claim · model-written summary
Ethanol increased total soluble sugars and free amino acids in drought-exposed leaves.
- Taxon
- SoybeanGlycine maxt0
- Treatment
- ethanol supplementatione0
- Outcome
- contents of total soluble sugars and free amino acidse0
- Direction
- increasede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“ethanol supplementation increased the contents of total soluble sugars and free amino acids in the leaves of drought-exposed plants”
e1“ethanol supplementation increased the contents of total soluble sugars and free amino acids in the leaves of drought-exposed plants”
t0“Soybean”
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