Objective: Plants, as sessile organisms, are subjected to diverse abiotic stresses, including salinity, metal toxicity, thermal fluctuations, and hypoxia at different phases of plant growth. Plants can activate messenger molecules to initiate a signaling cascade in response to environmental stresses, resulting in either cell death or plant acclimation. Nitric oxide (NO) is a small, , gaseous, redox-active molecule that plays a plethora of physiological roles in plants and has emerged as a key regulator of plant growth, development, flowering, senescence, stomatal closure, dormancy, photosynthesis, geotropism, and responses to abiotic and biotic stressors. It can also facilitate alteration in protein function and reprogram the gene profiling by direct or indirect interaction with different target molecules. As a key redox molecule, nitric oxide is an important signaling molecule with diverse physiological functions in plants was classified as a phytohormone that might regulate plant growth. NO had physiological effects in plants, such as growth and development, dormancy, regulation of metabolism, aging, cell death, stomata, photosynthesis, geotropism, flowering, and response to abiotic and biotic stressors.
Conclusions: This review discusses some aspects related to NO in plants, such as chemical properties, synthesis pathways, and physiological and biochemical changes that occur in plants under stress conditions.
