Fast responses of metabolites in Vicia faba L. to moderate NaCl stress

Abstract Salt stress impairs global agricultural crop production by reducing vegetative growth and yield. Despite this importance, a number of gaps exist in our knowledge about very early metabolic responses that ensue minutes after plants experience salt stress. Surprisingly, this early phase remains almost as a black box. Therefore, systematic studies focussing on very early plant physiological responses to salt stress (in this case NaCl) may enhance our understanding on strategies to develop crop plants with a better performance under saline conditions. In the present study, hydroponically grown Vicia faba L. plants were exposed to 90 min of NaCl stress, whereby every 15 min samples were taken for analyzing short-term physiologic responses. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry-based metabolite profiles were analysed by calculating a principal component analysis followed by multiple contrast tests. Follow-up experiments were run to analyze downstream effects of the metabolic changes on the physiological level. The novelty of this study is the demonstration of complex stress-induced metabolic changes at the very beginning of a moderate salt stress in V . faba , information that are very scant for this early stage. This study reports for the first that the proline analogue trans -4-hydroxy- l -proline, known to inhibit cell elongation, was increasingly synthesized after NaCl-stress initiation. Leaf metabolites associated with the generation or scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) were affected in leaves that showed a synchronized increase in ROS formation. A reduced glutamine synthetase activity indicated that disturbances in the nitrogen assimilation occur earlier than it was previously thought under salt stress.