Water deficit severely limits productivity of plants, and pose a major threat to modern agriculture system. Therefore, understanding drought adaptive mechanisms in drought-tolerant plants is imperative to formulate strategies for development of desiccation tolerance in crop plants. In present investigation, metabolic profiling employing GC-QTOF-MS/MS and HPLC-DAD was carried out to evaluate metabolic adjustments under drought stress in the xero-halophyte Salvadora persica. The metabolite profiling identified a total of 68 metabolites in S. persica leaf, including organic acids, amino acids, sugars, sugar alcohols, hormones, and polyphenols. The results showed that higher cellular osmolality under drought stress was accompanied by accumulations of several osmoprotectants like sugars and polyols (sucrose, glucose, mannose, galactose, erythrose, sorbose, glycerol, and myoinositol), organic acids (galactaric acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, oxalic acid, and citric acid), and amino acids (alanine, phenylalanine, tyrosine). Upregulation of ABA and JA support to achieve early drought tolerance in S. persica. Moreover, accumulation of coumarin, gallic acid, and chlorogenic acid provide antioxidative defense to S. persica. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis showed that altered metabolites were associated with starch and sucrose metabolism, galactose metabolism, inositol phosphate metabolism, and phenylalanine metabolism. While during recovery, metabolites associated with lysine biosynthesis and alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism were significantly altered. The results of the present study imply that coordinated regulations between various metabolites, metabolic processes, and pathways empower the xerohalophyte S. persica to adapt under drought environment. The knowledge from this study will enable the development of drought tolerance in crops using genetic engineering and breeding approaches.

缺水严重限制了植物的生产力，对现代农业系统构成了重大威胁。因此，了解耐旱植物的干旱适应机制对于制定发展作物耐旱性的策略至关重要。在目前的研究中，进行了利用GC-QTOF-MS / MS和HPLC-DAD进行的代谢谱分析，以评估干旱胁迫下干燥盐生植物Salvadora persica的代谢调节。代谢物谱分析确定了波斯菊中共68种代谢物叶子，包括有机酸，氨基酸，糖，糖醇，激素和多酚。结果表明，干旱胁迫下较高的细胞渗透压伴随着几种渗透保护剂的积累，如糖和多元醇（蔗糖，葡萄糖，甘露糖，半乳糖，赤藓糖，山梨糖，甘油和肌醇），有机酸（半乳糖酸，酒石酸，苹果酸）酸，草酸和柠檬酸）和氨基酸（丙氨酸，苯丙氨酸，酪氨酸）。ABA和JA支持的上调，以实现早耐旱S.桃。此外，香豆素，没食子酸和绿原酸的积累为S. persica提供了抗氧化防御作用。KEGG途径富集分析表明，代谢物的改变与淀粉和蔗糖代谢，半乳糖代谢，肌醇磷酸代谢和苯丙氨酸代谢有关。在恢复过程中，与赖氨酸生物合成和丙氨酸，天冬氨酸和谷氨酸代谢相关的代谢产物发生了显着变化。本研究结果暗示授权xerohalophyte各种代谢，代谢过程和途径之间的协调规定S.桃干旱环境下的适应。这项研究的知识将使利用基因工程和育种方法发展作物的耐旱性成为可能。