Role of Ascorbic Acid in Alleviating Abiotic Stress in Crop Plants

Environmental stresses cause significant damage to plant growth all over the world thereby significantly declining the yield. The damaging effects of stresses result from the alterations induced on key metabolic pathways including germination, root growth, water uptake, mineral assimilation, photosynthesis, protein synthesis, and respiration. Among the main causes of stresses induced growth damage is the excessive generation of toxic reactive oxygen species imparting several damaging effects like degradation of enzymes, proteins, nucleic acids, etc. Several responses are common to almost all stress factors however some are stress specific. The indigenously existing tolerance mechanisms are upregulated to alleviate the damaging effects of stresses. Among the key tolerance, metabolites ascorbic acid has a central role in stress mitigation by its antioxidant property and has been reported to alleviate the stress damage by strengthening the associated tolerance mechanisms. With this backdrop, present review focuses on summarizing the effects of stresses on plant growth and the role of ascorbic acid there in.