Advances in Stress-Resistant Changes in Hetero-Grafting Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) Plant

Abstract: Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) as one of the most important cucurbits vegetables around the world， is frequently affected by adverse environmental stresses during its production. These stress factors lead to both stunted growth and severe loss in fruit yield of cucumber. Grafting is regarded as the simplest， environmentalfriendliest，and most effective technique that ameliorated or relieved environmental stresses for plant， and has been widely applied. This review gives an actual overview of the recent literatures on the stress-resistant responses to hetero-grafting in cucumber and the mechanisms on stress-resistant responses in hetero-grafted cucumber plants at agronomical， physiological， biochemical and molecular levels. Combined considerations of the results in these literatures showed that， in comparisons with both ungrafted and autografted controls， hetero-grafting as a reciprocal process of scion-rootstock could activate the mechanisms on stress-resistant responses in hetero-grafted cucumber plants under unfavorable environmental conditions， such as changemnets of a large varieties of agronomical characteristics， physio-biochemical substances and gene expressions of cucumber， especially， enlargements of root-to-shoot ratios， increments of osmolytes， ABA (abscisic acid)， polyamines， and antioxidant substances， and strenthenments of detoxifications and protection， stabilizations of enzyme proteins and cell membrane structures，enhancements of photosynthetic capacity， and so on. Finally， both plant growth and fruit yield were not decreased in hetero-grafted cucumber. However， the molecular mechanisms on stress-resistant responses of hetero-grafted cucumber plants will be further researched， in particular， at the aspects of epigenetics. Simultaneously， the selections of multi-resistant rootstocks for cucumber will also be predominantly carried out in the future.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2017.03.0015