ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1556144
This article is part of the Research TopicAbiotic Stress Combination: Improving Resilience to Develop Climate-Smart CropsView all 8 articles
Integrative Physiological, Biochemical, and Metabolomic Analyses Reveal Complex Drought and Zinc Stress Tolerance in a Novel Miscanthus Hybrid
Provisionally accepted
Monirul Islam1*
Amjad Ali2
Leilei Zhang2
Andrea Ferrarini2
Luigi Lucini2
John Clifton-Brown3
Stefano Amaducci2- 1University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, United States
- 2Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Piacenza, Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
- 3Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Biosystems, Land-Use and Nutrition (iFZ), Justus Liebig University, Gießen, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Stresses caused by drought and heavy metals (HMs) adversely affect the establishment and yield potential of Miscanthus plants. These stresses are particularly acute on the lower quality 'contaminated and marginal-lands' less suitable for food production. In our prior research assessing drought and zinc stress tolerance across seven novel Miscanthus hybrids, a M. sacchariflorus × M. sinensis hybrid 'GRC10' exhibited superior stress tolerance and biomass production. This study investigated the effects of drought (D), zinc (Zn) stress, and their combination (D + Zn) on stress tolerance in the Miscanthus GRC10 using untargeted metabolomics to uncover stress tolerance mechanisms. Synchronous measurements of growth parameters, leaf gas exchange parameters, the maximum quantum yield of photosystem II (Fv/Fm), performance index (PI-ABS), antioxidant enzyme activity, proline, and malondialdehyde (MDA) production were made to elucidate associations. Both D, Zn, and combination (D + Zn) stress induced a broad metabolic reprogramming of secondary metabolism and hormone synthesis pathways. Fatty acid derivatives, nitrogen-containing compounds, hormone/signal-related compounds (jasmonate), and secondary metabolites (phenylpropanoids, N-containing compounds, and terpenes) showed significant (p < 0.05) abundance changes in response to D, Zn, and its combination D + Zn stress. Drought, Zn, and combination D + Zn stress treatments increased proline accumulation (p < 0.0001), antioxidant enzyme activities (p < 0.05), including superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glutathione reductase (GR), and decreased levels of MDA. Overall, these responses indicate that the Miscanthus GRC10 hybrid displays a complex response to drought and Zn stresses that confers growth resilience in Zn-contaminated and drought-prone lands.
Keywords: Miscanthus, gas exchange, untargeted metabolomics, Antioxidant Enzymes, Drought stress, Zinc stress
Received: 06 Jan 2025; Accepted: 07 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Islam, Ali, Zhang, Ferrarini, Lucini, Clifton-Brown and Amaducci. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Monirul Islam, moniruli@unr.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.