Mitigation of Salinity Stress in Plants Using Gold Nanoparticles

Salt stress is one of the most critical threats to agroecosystems, ranking first due to its negative consequences in crop or non-crop plant species. The agricultural lands are being salinized day by day. The high level of salinization in soils is manifested as stunted plant growth and reduced crop productivity. In order to bolster plant performance, a number of attempts have been done. Nano-structured materials are among the most promising candidates for buffering the severity of stress among the attempts of the last decade. Herewith in the chapter, we have had a discussion and review of the very new novel “gold nanoparticles” and their potential use against salt stress. According to the literature survey, there were very limited reports about the interactive effects of golden nanoparticles and salt stress. The limited reports suggested that gold nanoparticles can be considered novel growth promoting materials due to their regulatory roles in redox status, stress-related attributes, nitrogen metabolism, ion balance, biosynthesis of nitric oxide synthesis, and tetrapyrrole. However, such endpoints can be regarded as the “basic theme” of almost nanoparticles, but the motor theme of gold nanoparticles is still not fully understood. The chapter was concluded with a set of open questions for possible future research.