Six-week-old Plantago major L. and Thellungiella halophila Mey. plants were subjected to progressing salinity by a daily increase in the NaCl concentration by 100 mM until the final concentration of 400 mM. A dynamics of stress-dependent accumulation of Na⁺ and Cl⁻ ions, proline, and free polyamines and also activities of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide oxidase (SOD) and free, ion-bound, and covalently bound guaiacol-dependent peroxidases was studied. We also examined the intensity of gene expression encoding enzymes of proline metabolism and polyamine biosynthesis. It was shown that the high salt-resistance of the halophyte T. halophila was determined by plant capability of ion accumulation and stress-dependent proline accumulation. An important role in the maintenance of this plant homeostasis under salinity plays a high constitutive levels of activities of three types of peroxidases tested and also of proline manifesting a polyfunctional protective action. In contrast, P. major plants characterized by a lower tolerance to salt excess did not display a high constitutive level of proline or the activity of guaiacol-dependent peroxidases; they also were not capable of stress-induced accumulation of compatible osmolytes and did not accumulate the salt. However, this glycophyte contained relatively much spermidine and active SOD, which provided for a decrease in the damaging effects of reactive oxygen species under salt shock. In both plant species, it was established that salinity changed the intracellular content of polyamines, which was not dependent on the activity of gene transcription encoding the enzymes of their biosynthesis. The results obtained support a hypothesis that halophytes and glycophytes have some common mechanisms of tolerance to salinity, but the control of these mechanisms differs substantially.

Wild plants differing in the strategies of adaptation to salinity were grown for six weeks in the phytotron and then subjected to salt stress (100 mM NaCl, 24 h). The activities of principal antioxidant enzymes and the accumulation of sodium ions and proline were studied. Independently of the level of constitutive salt tolerance, plants of all species tested accumulated sodium ions under salinity conditions but differed in their capability of stress-dependent proline accumulation and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and guaiacol-dependent peroxidase activities. Proline-accumulating species were found among both halophytes (Artemisia lerchiana and Thellungiella halophila) and glycophytes (Plantago major and Mycelis muralis). The high activities of ionically-bound and covalently bound peroxidases were characteristic of Th. halophila plants. High constitutive and stress-induced SOD activities were, as a rule, characteristic of glycophytes with the low constitutive proline level: Geum urbanum and Thalictrum aquilegifolium. Thus, a negative correlation was found between proline content and SOD activity in wild species tested; it was especially bright in the halophyte Th. halophila and glycophyte G. urbanum. An extremely high constitutive and stress-induced levels of proline and peroxidase activity in Th. halophila maybe compensate SOD low activity in this plant, and this contributed substantially into its salt resistance. Thus, monitoring of stress-dependent activities of some antioxidant enzymes and proline accumulation in wild plant species allowed a supposition of reciprocal interrelations between SOD activity and proline accumulation. It was also established that the high SOD activity is not obligatory trait of species salt tolerance. Moreover, plants with the high activity of peroxidase and active proline accumulation could acclimate to salts stress (100 mM NaCl, 24 h) independently of SOD activity.