Silicon alleviates oxidative damage of wheat plants in pots under drought

By H. Gong, Xue-yi Zhu, Kun Chen, Suo-min Wang, Cheng-lie Zhang. 2005

883 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Drought-induced changes in oxidative damage to photosynthetic pigments, proteins and lipids, some enzyme activities and photosynthesis were investigated in wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) plants grown in pots applied with or without silicon under drought stress. Three treatments with three replicates were composed of “CK” (control, 2.11 mmol of sodium sulfate Kg −1 soil), “DR” (drought, 2.11 mmol of sodium sulfate Kg −1 soil) and “DSi” (drought + silicon, 2.11 mmol of sodium silicate Kg −1 soil). Drought stress was applied by maintaining 75% of relative water content in the “CK” soil and 50% of relative water content in the drought treatments (“DR” and “DSi”) for 12 days from jointing stage, after which the assays were performed on the recent fully expanded leaves. The results showed that application of silicon improved the water status of drought stressed plants. Compared with the non-silicon treatment, application of silicon increased the activities of some antioxidant enzymes: superoxide dismutase (SOD); catalase (CAT) and glutathione reductase (GR), the fatty acid unsaturation of lipids, and the contents of photosynthetic pigments and soluble proteins as well as total thiols under drought, whereas the content of hydrogen peroxide, activity of acid phospholipase (AP) and oxidative stress of proteins were decreased by applying silicon compared with those of non-silicon treatments under drought. The activities of glycolate oxidase (GO), peroxidase (POD) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) showed no significant difference between “DR” and “DSi”. In addition, application of silicon also increased the net CO 2 assimilation rate of wheat leaves under drought. It was suggested that the improvement of silicon on drought tolerance of wheat plants was associated with the increase of antioxidant defense abilities, therefore alleviating oxidative damage of cellular functional molecules induced by over produced reactive oxygen species (ROS) under drought and maintaining many physiological processes of stressed plants. The present work also suggested that silicon may be involved in metabolic or physiological activities in higher plants under drought, which coincided with previous studies in salt stressed plants.

Subfields: Geochemistry and Petrology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3f0858525cf9030974e9bd43f4da79b57492521b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Geochemistry and Petrology

1. P. Christie
2. M. Abdalla
3. Nanthi S. Bolan
4. Yong-guan Zhu
5. G. Lima
6. C. Crusciol
7. O. Ojuederie
8. Wanchun Sun

In Plant Science

1. O. Ojuederie
2. Wanchun Sun
3. A. Gunes
4. Y. You
5. Muhammad Mohsin Waqas
6. In-Jung Lee
7. P. Christie
8. A. Inal

Citations in the corpus

• Low dose of gamma irradiation enhanced drought tolerance in soybean (2011, background): “In addition, it modifies the activity of some enzymes and the accumulation of sugars and proteins in the plant (Gong et al., 2005), resulting in lower plant growth and yield (Costa et al., 1997).”
• Effects of silicon and drought stress on biochemical characteristics of leaves of upland rice cultivars (2016, background): “, 2006), and several studies have demonstrated that Si plays an important role in plant tolerance to environmental stresses (GONG et al., 2005; GUNES et al., 2007a,b, 2008; MA, 2004; ZHU et al., 2004;). In this sense, Gao et al. (2004), Gong et al. (2005), Gunes et al. (2007a) and Zhu et al.”
• Melatonin increased maize (Zea mays L.) seedling drought tolerance by alleviating drought-induced photosynthetic inhibition and oxidative damage (2016, neutral): “Drought stress triggers ROS accumulation and breaks down the balance between ROS generation and detoxification (Gong et al. 2005).”
• Silicon alleviates cadmium toxicity in peanut plants in relation to cadmium distribution and stimulation of antioxidative enzymes (2010, background): “Silicon benefits on salt tolerance (Zhu et al. 2004; Al-Aghabary et al. 2005), drought resistance ( Gong et al. 2005 ), as well as Mn (Shi et al. 2005a) and boron (B) (Gunes et al. 2007) tolerance of plants have been demonstrated to be related to its effect on antioxidant enzyme activity.”