ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1609338
Exogenous Myo-Inositol Enhances Drought Tolerance in Maize Seedlings by Antioxidant Defense, and Photosynthetic Efficiency
Provisionally accepted
- 1Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
- 2Eeological Environmental Monitoring Center Station of Heilongjiang Province, Harbin, China
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Drought stress severely impairs maize (Zea mays L.) production, particularly during the seedling stage. In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of exogenous myo-inositol (MI) in alleviating drought stress in maize seedlings. We established four treatments: control (CK), MI application under normal irrigation (G), drought stress (D), and MI application under drought stress (DG). The results demonstrate that MI significantly restored growth parameters under drought conditions, increasing shoot and root biomass by 40.74% and 28.30%, respectively, on Day 7.Additionally, MI enhanced photosynthetic efficiency (net photosynthetic rate (Pn), transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (gs), and photosystem II efficiency (Fv/Fm)) and upregulated osmotic regulators (e.g. proline and soluble sugars) in the leaves and roots. Furthermore, antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and glutathione reductase (GR)) and ascorbic acid-glutathione (ASA-GSH) cycle components were synergistically activated by MI, reducing oxidative damage, as indicated by decreases in malondialdehyde (MDA), H₂O₂, and O2 •-.Principal component analysis highlighted the pivotal roles of osmotic adjustment and antioxidant systems in drought mitigation. These findings reveal that MI is a potent inducer of drought resilience in maize, offering a novel strategy for maize cultivation under water scarcity.
Keywords: Drought stress, Maize, seedlings, exogenous myo-inositol, osmotic adjustment
Received: 10 Apr 2025; Accepted: 05 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Sun, Guo, Song, Yu, Li, Lin, Zhou and Yang. 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:
Hao Sun, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
Deguang Yang, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
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