Jasmonic Acid as a Regulator in Plant Stress Tolerance: Mechanisms and Agricultural Implications

Jasmonic acid (JA), a crucial plant hormone, plays a significant role in mediating plant responses to abiotic stress such as salinity, drought, extreme temperatures, and heavy metal toxicity. In horticultural crops, which are highly susceptible to environmental stressors, JA has emerged as a as key signaling molecule that enhance stress tolerance by modulating physiological, biochemical and molecular mechanisms. JA regulates stomata closure, osmotic adjustment, and antioxidant enzyme activity, thereby mitigating oxidative damage caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) under stress conditions. Additionally, JA influences the expression of stress-responsive genes and the accumulation of protective metabolites, such as proline and polyamines, which contribute to cellular stability and stress resilience. Exogenous application of JA has been shown to improve growth, yield, and quality in various horticultural crops under adverse environmental conditions. This review highlights the multifaceted role of JA in alleviating abiotic stress in horticultural crops and explores its potential as a sustainable strategy to enhance crop productivity and resilience in the face of climate change. Future research into the precise mechanisms of JA-mediated stress responses and its interaction with other phytohormones could provide valuable insights for developing stress-tolerant horticultural crop varieties or using high-throughput nucleotide sequencing techniques as well as CRISPR-CAS technology to a produce specific mutant that allows underlying mechanism of plant tolerance to unfavorable environments.