Nitric oxide (NO) is the “star molecule” in physiological field, it play multiple aspect of physiological function. In plant physiology, it is reported that NO can enhance plant tolerance to various stress such as saline, high temperature, but it is less enough study in the internal mechanism in NO-mediated plant tolerance at proteomics level.

The groups leaded by Professor YANG Yongping and Pro. HU Xiangyang used the new-build proteomics platform, and intestate the role of NO in the main crop maize. The results demonstrate that maize can quickly generate NO after saline treatment; the synthesized NO can further activate the antioxidant enzyme system to efficiently remove the toxic reactive oxygen species, on the other hand, NO can modulate the material and energy distribution, and the expression of cell-related proteins, to get through the tough period. Meanwhile, NO further improve the maize photosynthesis capability to obtain the enough material and energy, these results help us widely understanding the role of NO in plant physiology.

 This work was supported by 100 Talents Program of CAS (to X.H.) and grants from the National Science Foundation of China ( No. 30871704 and No. 30971452 to X.H., No. 30900871 to L.Y.).

Putative model for the role of NO signaling in regulating salt stress
response in maize seedlings. (image by KIB)