Salt tolerance in soybean.

ABSTRACT

Soybean is an important cash crop and its productivity is significantly hampered by salt stress. High salt imposes negative impacts on growth, nodulation, agronomy traits, seed quality and quantity, and thus reduces the yield of soybean. To cope with salt stress, soybean has developed several tolerance mechanisms, including (i) maintenance of ion homeostasis; (ii) adjustment in response to osmotic stress; (iii) restoration of osmotic balance; and (iv) other metabolic and structural adaptations. The regulatory network for abiotic stress responses in higher plants has been studied extensively in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana. Some homologous components involved in salt stress responses have been identified in soybean. In this review, we tried to integrate the relevant works on soybean and proposes a working model to describe its salt stress responses at the molecular level.