Plant salt-tolerance mechanisms

• Recent major advances have been made in identifying plant salt-tolerance mechanisms.
• Potential targets for improvement are uptake, sensing, signaling, and detoxification.
• Uptake and detoxification are mediated by membrane-bound transporters and channels.
• Tolerance can be engineered by combining this knowledge with novel genetic techniques.

Crop performance is severely affected by high salt concentrations in soils. To engineer more salt-tolerant plants it is crucial to unravel the key components of the plant salt-tolerance network. Here we review our understanding of the core salt-tolerance mechanisms in plants. Recent studies have shown that stress sensing and signaling components can play important roles in regulating the plant salinity stress response. We also review key Na+ transport and detoxification pathways and the impact of epigenetic chromatin modifications on salinity tolerance. In addition, we discuss the progress that has been made towards engineering salt tolerance in crops, including marker-assisted selection and gene stacking techniques. We also identify key open questions that remain to be addressed in the future.