ABSTRACT
The growth and development of medicinal plants can be adversely affected by high concentrations of heavy metals. Depending on the heavy metal concentration and also the medicinal plant species, some plants may become acclimatized to the heavy metal stress and gradually resume normal growth. The creation of salt-tolerant medicinal plants will lead to increased production of raw materials for drugs, flavors, fragrances, and spices all over the world. Salt stress affects medicinal plants at different physiological stages. Although the effects of salt stress on crops have been investigated widely and well studied, in the case of medicinal plants, there is a lack of information. Tolerance against salt stress needs profound changes in gene expression, which are accompanied by changes in composition of the plant transcriptome, metabolome, and proteome. Oil content and fatty acid synthesis are considered to be important for the salt stress tolerance of plants.
