49Chapter 3
Investigating the Effect of Elevated CO
2
in the Growth Environment of Salt-Stressed
Plants Using Integrated Omic Analyses
Matthaios-Emmanouil P. Papadimitropoulos and Maria I. Klapa
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
R. Mahalingam (ed.), Combined Stresses in Plants, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-07899-1_3
M. I. Klapa () · M.-E. P. Papadimitropoulos
Metabolic Engineering and Systems Biology Laboratory, Institute of Chemical
Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas (FORTH/ICE-HT),
Stadiou St., Platani, GR-265 04, Patras, Greece
e-mail: [email protected]
M.-E. P. Papadimitropoulos
Division of Genetics, Cell Biology & Developmental Biology, Department of Biology,
University of Patras, Patras, Greece
M. I. Klapa
Departments of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering & Bioengineering,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
3.1 Introduction
In an era, when the need for food of consistent and high quality throughout the
globe is of great interest, while the changes in the environment, including the green-
house effect, are altering the conditions of plant growth, furthering our understand-
ing of how the plants respond to various stresses at the molecular level becomes a
major objective for molecular plant physiologists, agricultural engineers, and the
food industry. Major abiotic stress factors for plants that are under investigation
individually but mainly in combination are the extreme cold or heat, the drought or
flooding, the soil or water salinity, chemicals and pollutants like heavy metals and
pesticides, the oxidative stress (i.e., the reactive oxygen species (ROS), the ozone),
the nutrient deprivation in soil, and changes in the composition of the atmosphere,
mainly the increase in the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration.
Among these, the investigation of the salinity effect on plant growth has intensified
in the recent years, because high soil or water salinity is a major environmental stress
and a substantial constraint to crop production. Increased salinization of arable land
is expected to have devastating global effects, estimated to result in 50 % land loss
by the middle of the twenty-first century (Wang et al. 2003 ). Hot and dry climates
favor water evaporation, leading thus to an increase in the salt concentration. Heavy
or low quality irrigation may also contribute to an increase in salinity. The problem