The Role of Salicylic Acid in Plants Exposed to Heavy Metals
Anket Sharma,
Gagan Preet Singh Sidhu,
Fabrizio Araniti,
Aditi Shreeya Bali,
Babar Shahzad,
Durgesh Kumar Tripathi,
Marian Brestic,
Milan Skalicky,
Marco Landi
Affiliations
Anket Sharma
State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, China
Gagan Preet Singh Sidhu
Department of Environment Education, Government College of Commerce and Business Administration, Chandigarh 160047, India
Fabrizio Araniti
Dipartimento AGRARIA, Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Località Feo di Vito, SNC I-89124 Reggio Calabria, RC, Italy
Aditi Shreeya Bali
Mehr Chand Mahajan D.A.V. College for Women, Chandigarh 160036, India
Babar Shahzad
School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7005, Australia
Durgesh Kumar Tripathi
Amity Institute of Organic Agriculture, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida 201313, India
Marian Brestic
Department of Plant Physiology, Faculty of Agrobiology and Food Resources, Slovak University of Agriculture, 94976 Nitra, Slovakia
Milan Skalicky
Department of Botany and Plant Physiology, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Marco Landi
Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, I-56124 Pisa, Italy
Salicylic acid (SA) is a very simple phenolic compound (a C7H6O3 compound composed of an aromatic ring, one carboxylic and a hydroxyl group) and this simplicity contrasts with its high versatility and the involvement of SA in several plant processes either in optimal conditions or in plants facing environmental cues, including heavy metal (HM) stress. Nowadays, a huge body of evidence has unveiled that SA plays a pivotal role as plant growth regulator and influences intra- and inter-plant communication attributable to its methyl ester form, methyl salicylate, which is highly volatile. Under stress, including HM stress, SA interacts with other plant hormones (e.g., auxins, abscisic acid, gibberellin) and promotes the stimulation of antioxidant compounds and enzymes thereby alerting HM-treated plants and helping in counteracting HM stress. The present literature survey reviews recent literature concerning the roles of SA in plants suffering from HM stress with the aim of providing a comprehensive picture about SA and HM, in order to orientate the direction of future research on this topic.
