Role of zinc sulfide nanoparticle pretreatment in mitigating drought stress in Brassica juncea
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Date
2016-06
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Drought is considered to be a major impediment for sustaining food grain productivity and ensuring food and nutritional security for the masses. Occurrence of oxidative stress in plants, due to over-production of reactive oxygen species is one of the common effects of various abiotic stresses, including drought. Plants have evolved a variety of physiological and biochemical processes for scavenging reactive oxygen species. The degree of tolerance to abiotic stresses depends on the activation of the antioxidant machinery in plants. Nanoparticles, because of their specific bio-molecular interactions, have the potential to activate the antioxidant machinery in plants. In the present experiments Brassica plants subjected to drought stress were pre-treated with different concentrations of zinc sulfide nanoparticles, so as to evaluate if the nanoparticle pretreatment can active the antioxidant machinery of the plants, so as to mitigate the effect of imposed drought stress. From the initial experiments it was deduced that three days of drought stress is optimal for studying the response of Brassica seedlings. It was found the pre-treatment of Brassica seedlings with different concentrations of zinc sulfide nanoparticles effectively curtailed the production of reactive oxygen species. It was found that all the zinc sulfide nanoparticle treatments were benign to the Brassica seedlings. Zinc sulfide nanoparticle treatment effectively lowered the levels of stress marker molecules, viz., proline, MDA, hydrogen peroxide, etc., as compared to the untreated seedlings. The results obtained during the current investigations, can be used to develop nanoparticle based formulations that can be used to prime the crop plants to withstand impending stresses.
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