This paper investigates effect of salinity stress and K⁺ nutrition on photosynthetic parameters of isolated chloroplasts and shows that chloroplasts’ ability to regulate ion transport across the envelope and thylakoid membranes play a critical role in leaf photosynthetic performance under salinity.

Salt stress has a high impact on crop yield, with current global annual losses being around US$27 billion. Among horticulture crops, cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is considered a moderately salt-sensitive species. Here, we report a study on two cultivars of cucumber with different tolerance to salt. The ability of roots to retain K and produce reactive O species is important for salt tolerance screening and plant breeding programmes.

Very little is known about the adaptation mechanism of A. littoralis under saline conditions. In this study, we investigated salt tolerance mechanisms adopted by this halophyte. Proteomic analyses revealed that the reduction of proteins related to photosynthesis and induction of proteins involved in glycolysis activity and TCA cycle and energy metabolism could be the main mechanisms for salt tolerance in A. littoralis.

Dehydrin proteins play a key role in stress tolerance in plants. The aim of this work was to highlight the role of the different conserved domains of a wheat dehydrin (DHN-5) overexpressed in Arabidopsis transgenic plants. We showed that DHN-5 via its K-segments may play a role in the improvement of tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress. It remains to be seen the effect of the over-expressing of DHN-5 in the development of crops with multiple stress tolerances.

Plants exhibiting crassulacean acid metabolism are highly heat sensitive in the dark when malic acid has accumulated in cell vacuoles overnight. The present investigation on Clusia and Agave shows that light effectively eliminates the increased heat sensitivity seen at high acid levels. It is concluded that in the dark, heat-induced efflux of malic acid from vacuoles causes damage to leaf tissue, particularly to chloroplasts, whereas under illumination, damage is avoided by turnover of the acid during photosynthetic metabolism.

Iron toxicity is harmful to plants. The aim of this study was to characterise the mechanisms underlying differential Fe-toxicity tolerance in wheat. From our results we propose that Fe-toxicity tolerance in wheat is shoot based and is mainly associated with the regulation of translocation and chelation of Fe together with increased antioxidant defence in shoots.

Leaf trait correlations are important for understanding carbon–water–nutrient couplings in plant functional biology. We investigated leaf hydraulics and economic traits for 10 Chinese temperate tree species, and found a tight co-ordination between these two suits of traits. This co-ordinated performance plays an important role in determining plant ecological strategies and supports the ‘fast–slow’ leaf economics spectrum.

In this study we isolated the SlBAH1 gene from tomato. SlBAH1 possesses E3 ubiquitin ligase enzyme activity. SlBAH1 was localised in the nucleus, cytoplasm and plasma membrane. SlBAH1-silencing enhanced resistance to Botrytis cinerea.