Cited by 505Plant Stress Responses and TolerancePlant biochemistry and biosynthesisPlant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity

Plant Metabolomics: An Overview of the Role of Primary and Secondary Metabolites against Different Environmental Stress Factors

Open access
Salam, Uzma, Ullah, Shakir, Tang, Zhong-Hua, Elateeq, Ahmed A., Khan, Yaseen, Khan, Jafar, Khan, Asif, Ali, Sajid·2023·Life

Abstract

Several environmental stresses, including biotic and abiotic factors, adversely affect the growth and development of crops, thereby lowering their yield. However, abiotic factors, e.g., drought, salinity, cold, heat, ultraviolet radiations (UVr), reactive oxygen species (ROS), trace metals (TM), and soil pH, are extremely destructive and decrease crop yield worldwide. It is expected that more than 50% of crop production losses are due to abiotic stresses. Moreover, these factors are responsible for physiological and biochemical changes in plants. The response of different plant species to such stresses is a complex phenomenon with individual features for several species. In addition, it has been shown that abiotic factors stimulate multi-gene responses by making modifications in the accumulation of the primary and secondary metabolites. Metabolomics is a promising way to interpret biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in plants. The study of metabolic profiling revealed different types of metabolites, e.g., amino acids, carbohydrates, phenols, polyamines, terpenes, etc, which are accumulated in plants. Among all, primary metabolites, such as amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids polyamines, and glycine betaine, are considered the major contributing factors that work as osmolytes and osmoprotectants for plants from various environmental stress factors. In contrast, plant-derived secondary metabolites, e.g., phenolics, terpenoids, and nitrogen-containing compounds (alkaloids), have no direct role in the growth and development of plants. Nevertheless, such metabolites could play a significant role as a defense by protecting plants from biotic factors such as herbivores, insects, and pathogens. In addition, they can enhance the resistance against abiotic factors. Therefore, metabolomics practices are becoming essential and influential in plants by identifying different phytochemicals that are part of the acclimation responses to various stimuli. Hence, an accurate metabolome analysis is important to understand the basics of stress physiology and biochemistry. This review provides insight into the current information related to the impact of biotic and abiotic factors on variations of various sets of metabolite levels and explores how primary and secondary metabolites help plants in response to these stresses.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/life13030706

Cites

208 of 208 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • While the consistency of the leaves was standardized by selecting those with a similar structure and without damage, tree age and growth stage may still influence the phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity.

    “While the consistency of the leaves was standardized by selecting those with a similar structure and without damage, tree age and growth stage may still influence the phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity.”

    From Comparative Analysis of Infusions and Ethanolic Extracts of Annona muricata Leaves from Colima, Mexico: Phytochemical Profile and Antioxidant Activity (2024) · cites this paper as [63]

    Section 4.2 (page unavailable) says the concentration of secondary metabolites is controlled partly by the growing period, supporting the possibility that growth stage affects phytochemical profiles. It also describes antioxidant roles for those metabolites, but does not say that tree age or growth stage changes antioxidant activity. The leaf-selection procedure is the citing authors’ own description, not a finding attributed to this review. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Older trees might produce different concentrations of secondary metabolites compared to younger ones, potentially affecting the antioxidant capacity of the extracts and infusions.

    “Older trees might produce different concentrations of secondary metabolites compared to younger ones, potentially affecting the antioxidant capacity of the extracts and infusions [62,63,64].”

    From Comparative Analysis of Infusions and Ethanolic Extracts of Annona muricata Leaves from Colima, Mexico: Phytochemical Profile and Antioxidant Activity (2024) · cites this paper as [63]

    Section 4.2 says secondary-metabolite concentrations are influenced by the growing period and describes antioxidant roles for these compounds; it also links flavonoid content to antioxidant activity. It does not specifically compare older and younger trees or assess the antioxidant capacity of their extracts or infusions. No page numbers are available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 210 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. [1]Athar H. Ashraf M. Strategies for crop improvement against salinity and drought stress: An overview Salinity and Water Stress Springer Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany 2009 1 16
  2. [11]Hummel J. Strehmel N. Bölling C. Schmidt S. Walther D. Kopka J. Mass spectral search and analysis using the golm metabolome database The Handbook of Plant Metabolomics Wiley Hoboken, NJ, USA 2013 321 343
  3. [26]Ghag S.B. Ganapathi T. Jain S.M. Penna S. Omics technologies and breeding of horticultural crops Omics in Horticultural Crops Elsevier Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2022 75 90
  4. [68]Dikilitas M. Simsek E. Roychoudhury A. Role of proline and glycine betaine in overcoming abiotic stresses Protective Chemical Agents in the Amelioration of Plant Abiotic Stress: Biochemical and Molecular Perspectives Wiley Hoboken, NJ, USA 2020 1 23
  5. [127]Krasavina M.S. Burmistrova N.A. Raldugina G.N. The role of carbohydrates in plant resistance to abiotic stresses Emerging Technologies and Management of Crop Stress Tolerance Elsevier Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2014 229 270
  6. [198]Cabane M. Afif D. Hawkins S. Lignins and abiotic stresses Advances in Botanical Research Elsevier Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2012 219 262
  7. [204]Toffolatti S.L. Maddalena G. Passera A. Casati P. Bianco P.A. Quaglino F. Role of terpenes in plant defense to biotic stress Biocontrol Agents and Secondary Metabolites Elsevier Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2021 401 417
  8. [206]Al Musayeib N.M. Musarat A. Maqsood F. Terpenes: A Source of Novel Antimicrobials, Applications and Recent Advances Eco-Friendly Biobased Products Used in Microbial Diseases CRC Press Boca Raton, FL, USA 2022 247 270

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Salam, U., Ullah, S., Tang, Z.-H., Elateeq, A. A., Khan, Y., Khan, J., Khan, A., & Ali, S.
Affiliations
  • Northeast Forestry University (CN)
  • Key Laboratory of Plant Ecology, Northeast Forestry Universit y, Harbin 150040, China
  • Al-Azhar University (EG)
  • Northwest A&F University (CN)
  • Universidade de São Paulo (BR)
  • Yeungnam University (KR)
Corresponding author
Ali, Sajid
Venue
Life
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2023-03-06
Volume
13
Issue
3
Pages
706
ISSN
2075-1729 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4323313289
Cited by
480
References
210
Citations by year
2026: 165 · 2025: 192 · 2024: 104 · 2023: 19
FWCI
11.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Life (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
The key Research and Development project of Heilongjiang Province, China (JD22A008)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant Stress Responses and Tolerance
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Plant biochemistry and biosynthesis
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity
Keywords
plant metabolomics, primary metabolites, secondary metabolites, abiotic stress, biotic stress, drought stress, salt stress, cold stress, heat stress, ultraviolet radiation, reactive oxygen species, trace metals, soil pH, osmolytes, betaine, polyamines, phenolic compounds, terpenoids, alkaloids, plant stress tolerance, crop yield loss

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review