Deciphering the Role of Nanoparticles in Stimulating Drought and Salinity Tolerance in Plants: Recent Insights and Perspective

The co-existence of drought and salinity stresses due to rapid global climate change is detrimental to plants. Both stress conditions alter the morpho-physiological, biochemical, and molecular responses of plants due to ionic toxicity, osmotic, hormonal, and nutrient imbalance, and oxidative stress. In general, the combination of both stresses is worse for plants rather than an individual stress condition. To date, various novel strategies including the use of nanoparticles (NPs) have been tried to minimize the negative effects of these stresses. Despite various interventions, improvements are still needed to create tolerance against the combined stress of drought and salinity using NPs in plants. The application of NPs regulates various plant defense mechanisms such as the activation of antioxidative mechanisms to detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and effectively interferes with gene expression and cellular mechanisms to protect the plant cells. Here, we present an overview of how these stresses are deleterious for plants’ health and discuss the potential mechanisms underlying NPs-induced tolerance against drought and salinity conditions.