ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the evidence regarding the mitigating effect of exogenous nitric oxide (NO) during stresses such as salt, drought, temperature stress and heavy metals. The most relevant publications have been collected and organized in tables in order to give a better understanding of the numerous results. Salt stress affects plants at the germination, growth and developmental stages; at the physiological level it triggers osmotic and ionic stress, interrupting plant–water relations and disturbing cell division and expansion. NO treatment, in general, is responsible for several molecular adjustments, such as the induction of different stress-related response genes and the modification of already existing molecules by posttranslational modifications. Despite the high number of available publications on the topic, the vast majority of them focus on the physiological aspects of the relationship between abiotic stress and exogenous nitric oxide, and relatively little is known about the changes on the metabolomic, proteomic and genomic level in the background.
