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Plant Gene and Trait, 2013, Vol.4, No.20, 109
-
123
http://pgt.sophiapublisher.com
109
Research Report Open Access
Hydrogen Peroxide Priming Stimulates Drought Tolerance in Mustard (
Brassica
juncea
L.) Seedlings
Mohammad Anwar Hossain
1,2
, Masayuki Fujita
2
1. Laboratory of Plant Stress Responses, Department of Applied Biological Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Kagawa University, Miki-cho, Kita-gun, Kagawa
761-0795, Japan
2. Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh
Corresponding author email:
hossainma@gmail.com;
Authors
Plant Gene and Trait, 2013, Vol.4, No.20 doi: 10.5376/pgt.2013.04.0020
Received: 03 Jul., 2013
Accepted: 17 Aug., 2013
Published: 05 Oct., 2013
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Hossain and Fujita, 2013,
Hydrogen Peroxide Priming Stimulates Drought Tolerance in Mustard (
Brassica juncea
L.) Seedlings, Plant Gene and Trait, Vol.4,
No.20 109-123 (doi: 10.5376/pgt.2013.04.0020)
Abstract
Hydrogen peroxide, a central modulator of stress signal transduction pathways, activates multiple defense responses that
reinforce resistance to various abiotic and biotic stresses in plants. The present study examines the potential biochemical mechanisms
of hydrogen peroxide pre-treatment-induced drought tolerance in mustard (
Brassica juncea
L.) seedlings by analyzing numerous vital
components of methylglyoxal and reactive oxygen species detoxification systems. Eight-day-old seedlings were pre-treated with low
concentration (50 µM) of hydrogen peroxide for 24 h prior to the imposition of drought stress (20% PEG-6000) for 48 h. Hydrogen
peroxide pre-treatment enhanced the membrane stability of leaf tissues under drought stress, as revealed from greatly reduced
malondealdehyde content. The level of endogenous hydrogen peroxide contents in exogenous hydrogen peroxide pre-treated drought
stressed-seedlings was markedly lower than those of the seedlings subjected to drought stress without hydrogen peroxide
pre-treatment. A declination in the activities of ascorbate peroxidase, catalase and glyoxalase II were observed in response to drought
stress whereas the dehydroascorbate reductase, glutathione peroxidase and glyoxalase I activities significantly increased. The content
of ascorbate reduced glutathione and oxidized glutathione increased significantly whereas glutathione/glutathione disulphide ratio
decreased in drought-stressed seedlings. Surprisingly, hydrogen peroxide pre-treated drought-stressed seedlings maintained a
significantly higher ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, catalase, glutathione S-trasnferase, and glyoxalase II activities and
glutathione/glutathione disulphide ratio when compared with the seedlings subjected to drought stress without hydrogen peroxide
pre-treatment. Our results indicated that hydrogen peroxide primed a defense response in the seedlings that could trigger the
activation of both ROS and MG detoxification pathways and enabled the seedlings tolerance to drought-induced oxidative damage.
Keywords
Drought stress; Reactive oxygen species; Methylglyoxal; Hydrogen peroxide; Mustard
Introduction
In their natural habitat plants regularly experience
multiple abiotic and biotic stresses from which they
cannot escape and for which they have evolved
intricate mechanisms to detect environmental changes,
allowing optimal responses to adverse conditions
(Krasensky and Jonak, 2012). Drought or water stress
is a major abiotic agent that seriously reduces crop
productivity and crop expansion worldwide (Yang et
al., 2010). Predicted changes in climatic variability
and rainfall pattern are expected to make crop
improvement even more crucial for food production
(Lamb, 2012). Therefore, the development of drought
tolerant crop varieties has become an urgent concern
for many crop-breeding programs to ensure global
food security. Although improved adaptation to abiotic
stress has long been a pursuit of breeders, it has been
difficult to achieve due to the multigenic origin of the
adaptive responses (Lopes et al., 2011). One of the
biggest challenges to modern sustainable agricultural
development is to obtain new knowledge that could
allow breeding and engineering of plants with new
and desired agronomical traits (Le et al., 2007;
Duque et al., 2012). Therefore, the importance of
understanding the molecular and biochemical basis of
drought stress responses and tolerance is driven by
both an interest in basic knowledge and the prospect
that such knowledge might provide new strategies for
drought stress tolerance in plants for more sustainable
agricultural production.
Water stress, salinity stress, extreme temperatures and
oxidative stress are often interconnected, and may
induce similar cellular damage (Wang et al., 2003;