Pixel-registered multimodal synchrotron XRF and FTIR microscopies reveal salinity stress response mechanisms in...

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that negatively affects nearly all plant species at all stages of growth. Drought and poor-quality irrigation cause high soil salinity and salt accumulation via evaporation, reducing crop productivity. Despite its critical importance, the spatial localization of salt ions and associated biochemical changes within plants experiencing high salinity remains largely unknown. In this study, we developed a multimodal imaging pipeline to understand the impact of salinity on the pistachio rootstock UCB-1 (Pistacia atlantica x Pistacia integerrima). We directly link biochemical fingerprints in stem tissue architecture with salt ion localization to provide insights into the strategies pistachio uses to tolerate salinity.

We observed that Pistacia spp. exposed to high salt conditions accumulated Ca, Si, Cl, Al and Mg as hotspots within the pith, compared to the control (of which only Ca and Al co-locate). In contrast, there was a decrease in K between the control and salinity treatment. Hotspots of amide I and II were present in the cortex and pith of the salinity treated sample. Additionally, the salinity treatment resulted in an increased abundance of pectin and carbohydrates within the pith compared to the control, and the abundance of esters/carboxylic acid was greater in the salinity treatment.

We determined that Cl and K, S and P, and biochemical components polysaccharide and pectin, esters and carboxylic acid, amide I and cellulose are the strongest drivers of salinity-treatment induced variability. In the cortex and phloem/xylem, a negative K-Ca correlation decreases in the salinity treatment. Several hotspots of elements and amide I (proteins) appear under salinity treatment, particularly in the cortex, suggesting an increase in the production of stress-related proteins (in response to high Cl) and/or structural proteins (i.e. Ca). Together, these results indicate that pistachio responds to salinity through ion compartmentalization coupled with a targeted biochemical adjustment, rather than a broadscale tissue-wide response. Overall, these novel, spatially resolved pixel-registered multimodal imaging data provide an enabling platform to understand the mechanisms of salinity tolerance in Pistacia spp and can be broadly applied to studying stress-related phenotype response in various plant tissues.