Abstract
Abstract
Mekong Delta is the most important agricultural area of Vietnam. In the backdrop of recent climate change, the salinisation in soil is threatening crop plants causing serious damages such as yield loss as well as inhibition of crop quality and productivity in the region. Under salinisation conditions, plant growth and development have to experience negative effects to adverse conditions. The high concentration of Na+ ions in plants hampers water and nutrient uptakes, inhibits pathway of photosynthesis, and changes physiological and molecular mechanisms causing intracellular osmotic and ionic stress. Hence, salinisation in the Mekong Delta area is among key challenges affecting national crop productivity and food security.
This review describes the plant-endophyte interaction associated with saline tolerance and the performance of endophytes in plants under saline stress. Endophytes are within living healthy plants, play an important role in plant growth promotion and enhance the stress-tolerating ability in host plant without obvious negative effects. Halotolerant plants owning beneficially endophytic community are revealed as a microbial biotechnology tool to alleviate saline stress. Accordingly, endophytes within plants can overcome saline stress via multiple mechanisms such as accumulating and synthesizing organic osmolytes, activating the antioxidant defense system and phytohormonal profiles, stimulating the lipidic layer of Gram-negative bacteria and bacterial consortium interactions, regulating key transcripts for saline tolerance, and other unclear mechanisms. The symbiotic plant-endophyte interactions have been considered as a promising mechanism for saline tolerance in numerous recent studies. Therefore, unraveling the mechanisms of saline-tolerating ability using plant-endophyte interactions could provide valuable strategies to improve crop yields. The management of saline stress using endophytic strategies has been promised as a great approach to sustainable agriculture in the Mekong Delta area.