Abstract

The importance of polyamines (PAs) in plant growth and development was recognised several decades ago and, since then, their role in cell proliferation, embryogenesis, organogenesis, flowering, fruit development and ripening, etc. has been investigated to a great extent. In more recent years, most of the attention on PAs has been focussed on their functions in biotic and, especially, abiotic stress responses. Exogenous application, transgenic plants over- or under-expressing PA biosynthetic genes, and mutants have been used to unveil their essential contribution to plant tolerance to salinity, drought, chilling, and heavy metal stresses, among others. In parallel, knowledge on their mechanisms of action has increased greatly and it is today evident that PA functions depend upon their ability to (a) bind electrostatically or covalently to numerous compounds thereby modulating membrane, cell wall, nucleic acid, and protein structure and functions, (b) produce hydrogen peroxide via their catabolic pathways, (c) interact with the biosynthetic and signaling pathways of practically all known phytohormones, and (d) interact with nitric oxide. In this review, a state-of-the-art overview of PA functions in plants and their possible applications in mitigating stress in crop plants is provided. The potential of seed priming with PAs as an economically and environmentally valid approach for enhancing plant tolerance to adverse environmental conditions is discussed and some results from our study on quinoa and salt stress are presented.