Plants Appear to Be Self-Medicating by Producing Their Own Aspirin When Stressed

It appears that not only do humans get stressed, but plants also get stressed due to external factors. But like humans, they can’t buy medications to relieve stress. Instead, plants self-medicate when stressed.

Whenever we experience minor pains and aches, we grab the nearest aspirin to relieve the pain. If we experience slight fevers, aspirin always seems to save the day. Aspirin relieves mild to moderate aches and pains like toothaches, headaches, muscle aches, or the common cold. 

It’s also used to alleviate swelling in certain conditions like arthritis because it’s considered a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or NSAID. It’s also known as a salicylate, the major component in aspirin and other pain-relievers.

But people don’t know that salicylate is a natural plant component. It’s a critical plant hormone vital in several plant functions such as seed germination, stomatal closure, floral induction, root initiation, thermogenesis, and biotic stress response. 

A Plant Sciences study titled “Reciprocity between a retrograde signal and a putative metalloprotease reconfigures plastidial metabolic and structural states” shows the plants’ self-defense mechanism that produces salicylic acid, the active metabolite of aspirin, and how it’s regulated. 

It’s created by photosynthesis via the plant’s chloroplasts, the plant’s tiny green organelles. A plant biologist from the University of California, Riverside, Wilhelmina van de Ven, says this process is similar to humans taking painkillers to relieve discomfort. 

How do plants self-medicate when stressed

It might be astonishing that plants produce salicylic acid, a major ingredient in synthetic aspirin for humans. But Wilhelmina van de Ven explains how plants create their own painkillers by performing biochemical analyses on mutated plants blocking the effects of their primary stress signaling pathways. 

Like humans who face stressors from external environments daily, plants also fight for their lives against these environmental stresses. ROS or reactive oxygen species are the by-product of environmental stresses that impact living organisms like plants.

These can include excessive heat, drought, or mean insects that suck the life out of the plants. While ROS in regulation is extremely useful in blocking the stress signaling pathways of plants, it is considered lethal at alarming levels. That said, regulation is key to producing aspiring to relieve plant stress. 

The researchers used Arabidopsis or Rockcress as the plant guinea pig for the experiment. They focused on a component called MEcPP, an early warning molecule and a telltale sign that the plant is stressed. 

Once the MEcPP accumulates in the plants, it stimulates a chemical reaction and creates a response: salicylic acid. 

Jin-Zheng Wang, a plant geneticist from UCR, says, “At non-lethal levels, ROS are like an emergency call to action, enabling the production of protective hormones such as salicylic acid.”

She also adds, “We’d like to be able to use the gained knowledge to improve crop resistance. That will be crucial for the food supply in our increasingly hot, bright world.”

Although this study is still in its infancy, the researchers have considered this knowledge a huge benefit in plant modification, so plants are more resistant to environmental hazards.

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