Coumarin pretreatment alleviates salinity stress in wheat seedlings

The potentiality of COU to improve plant tolerance to salinity was investigated. Wheat grains were primed with COU (50 ppm) and then grown under different levels of NaCl (50, 100, 150 mM) for two weeks. COU pretreatment improved the growth of wheat seedling under salinity, relative to COU-untreated seedlings, due to the accumulation of osmolytes such as soluble sugars and proline. Moreover, COU treatment significantly improved K+/Na+ ratio in the shoots of both salt stressed and un-stressed seedlings. However, in the roots, this ratio increased only under non-salinity. In consistent with phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), phenolics and flavonoids were accumulated in COU-pretreated seedlings under the higher doses of salinity, relative to COU-untreated seedlings. COU primed seedlings showed higher content of the coumarin derivative, scopoletin, and salicylic, chlorogenic, syringic, vanillic, gallic and ferulic acids, under both salinity and non-salinity conditions. Salinity stress significantly improved the activity of peroxidase (POD) in COU-pretreated seedlings. However, the effect of COU on the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) was only obtained at the highest dose of NaCl (150 mM). The present results suggest that COU pretreatment could alleviate the adverse effect of salinity on the growth of wheat seedlings through enhancing, at least partly, the osmoregulation process and antioxidant defense system.