Table 3.

Salinity induced regulation of major metabolites in different halophytes.

Metabolite	Plant species	Regulation		Function	Reference
		Up	Down
Polyols straight chain (Mannitol and Sorbitol)	Mesembryanthemum crystallinum (Ice plant)	↑	–	Osmotic adjustments and osmoprotection	Loewus and Dickinson (1982)
Polyols cyclic (myo-inositol)	M. crystallinum (Ice plant)	↑	–	Osmotic adjustments and osmoprotection	Loewus and Dickinson (1982)
Phytate	M. crystallinum (Ice plant)	↑	–	Serves as phosphate storage foe seed	Yamaguchi-Shlnozakl and Shinozaki (1995)
Abscisic acid (ABA)	M. crystallinum (Ice plant)	↑	–	Regulates growth, Promotes switch from C3 to Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM)	Thomas et al. (1992), Thomas and Bohnert (1993), Yamaguchi-Shlnozakl and Shinozaki (1995)
	Arabidopsis	↑	–	Regulates growth	Thomas and Bohnert (1993), Yamaguchi-Shlnozakl and Shinozaki (1995)
IMT1	Porteresia coarctata	↑	–	Pinitol synthesis	Agarie et al. (2009)
D-pinitol	Acrostichum aureum	↑	–	Osmoprotectant	Sun et al. (1999)
β-alanine betaine	Populus euphratica	↑	–	Osmoprotectant	Brosché et al. (2005)
	Sueada salsa	↑	–	Osmoprotectant	Liu et al. (2011)
Prolines	Olea europaea	↑	–	Promotes the activity of antioxidant enzymes, photosynthesis and plant growth	Ahmed et al. (2010)
	P. euphratica	↑	–	Osmoprotectant	Brosché et al. (2005)
	Thellungiella halophila	↑	–	Osmoprotecttant and ROS scavenging	Gong et al. (2005)
Sucrose, fructose, and glucose	T. halophila	↑	–	Osmoprotecttant and ROS scavenging	Gong et al. (2005)
Tyrosine	S. salsa	↑	–	Osmoprotectants and protection of PSII	Liu et al. (2011)
Organic acids	Limonium latifolium	–	↓		Gagneul et al. (2007)
2-Methyl-malic acid and Malonic acid	Lotus creticus	↑	–	Osmoprotectent	Sanchez et al. (2011)
Citric, succinic, fumaric,	L. creticus	–	↓	Osmoprotectent	Sanchez et al. (2011)
INO1	P. coarctata	↑	–	Pinitol synthesis	Agarie et al. (2009)
Conjugated polyamines	Thellungiella salsuginea	↑	–	ROS scavenging	Mapelli et al. (2008)