Responses of woody plant Dalbergia odorifera treated with glycine betaine to drought and cold stresses: involvement of the alternative oxidase

Abstract

With global climate change, the research about the response of a plant to abiotic stresses is one of the most active themes in plant science. Indeed, climate change appears to have increased in recent years, and more changes are expected in the next decades concerning plant growth and adaptation to their environments (Cernoch and Kopecky 2020). Abiotic stresses such as drought or cold stress affect plants by harming the metabolic machinery; it can also perturb the equilibrium of the production and scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in the plant cell, which alters negatively plant growth and development (Sharma et al. 2019). Stress tolerance in plants is correlated with different physiological changes including the accumulation of osmoprotectants and the increase of antioxidant activities (Yancey et al. 1994). Some of these adjustments are needed for enhancing the drought or cold tolerance in plants, comprise changes in genes expression and in membrane