The synergy of halotolerant PGPB and mauran mitigates salt stress in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) via osmoprotectants accumulation Sánchez, P. Castro-Cegrí, Alejandro Sierra, S. Garrido, D. Llamas, I. Sampedro Quesada, María Inmaculada Palma Martín, Francisco José Salinity stress is one of the major abiotic factors limiting sustainable agriculture.Halotolerant plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) increased salt stress tolerancein plants, but the mechanisms underlying the tolerance are poorly understood. Thisstudy investigated the PGP activity of four halotolerant bacteria under salinity stressand the tomato salt-tolerance mechanisms induced by the synergy of these bacteriawith the exopolysaccharide (EPS) mauran. All PGPB tested in this study were able tooffer a significant improvement of tomato plant biomass under salinity stress; Periba-cillus castrilensis N3 being the most efficient one. Tomato plants treated with N3 andthe EPS mauran showed greater tolerance to NaCl than the treatment in the absenceof EPS and PGPB. The synergy of N3 with mauran confers salt stress tolerance intomato plants by increasing sodium transporter genes' expression and osmoprotectantcontent, including soluble sugars, polyols, proline, GABA, phenols and the polyamineputrescine. These osmolytes together with the induction of sodium transporter genesincrease the osmotic adjustment capacity to resist water loss and maintain ionichomeostasis. These findings suggest that the synergy of the halotolerant bacterium N3and the EPS mauran could enhance tomato plant growth by mitigating salt stress andcould have great potential as an inductor of salinity tolerance in the agriculture secto 2024-07-01T10:07:00Z 2024-07-01T10:07:00Z 2023-11 info:eu-repo/semantics/article https://hdl.handle.net/10481/92894 10.1111/ppl.14111 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional