Abstract
The present study was conducted to determine the interaction effects of zinc availability and salt stress in Bangladeshi soybean cultivar (cv. Shohag) whether zinc can alleviate the hazardous effects of salt stress or not. In this study, the plants are grown in zinc treated soil and also exposed to increasing (0, 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 mM NaCl) levels of salinity. The results showed that the dry weight of root, stem, leaves, petioles and total dry weight were significantly reduced by salinity. The activities of antioxidant enzymes, lipid peroxidation, proline content were significantly affected by salt stress. Zinc supplementation helped the plants to cope with the salinity stress by improving the total dry weight. The antioxidant enzyme activities including catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and proline content increased in response to salinity. The extent of lipid peroxidation noticed in salt stressed plants. However, zinc application enhanced catalase and ascorbate peroxidase activity as well as proline content in growing plants at different salt concentrations. The interaction between zinc and salinity significantly reduced lipid peroxidation. Application of zinc to salt-stressed plants ameliorates the salinity induced hazardous effects by enhancing the activities of antioxidant enzymes such as CAT and APX and Proline content.
Highlights
Among other natural disasters, salinity is one of the most pernicious abiotic stresses which reduces crop production worldwide
Zinc application on NaCl stressed soybean plants increased the dry weight of stems by 24.30%, 54.35%, 37.74%, 1.36% and 5.04% under salinity levels at 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 mM respectively (Table 1)
Zinc application on NaCl stressed soybean plants increased the dry weight of leaves by 28.00%, 20.41%, 8.04%, 14.49% and 11.90% under salinity levels at 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 mM, respectively (Table 1)
Summary
Salinity is one of the most pernicious abiotic stresses which reduces crop production worldwide. Protection against oxidative stress is mediated by an enzymatic antioxidant mechanism that includes catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POX) and enzymes of the ascorbate-glutathione cycle as ascorbate peroxidase (APX), monodehydroascorbate reductase (MDHAR), dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR) [15,16,17] and non-enzymatic antioxidants such as phenolics, flavonoids, tocopherol, ASC and GSH [18,19,20]. Catalase is the second line of defense which converts lethal hydrogen peroxide to water and molecular oxygen [23]. Another versatile antioxidant enzyme is ascorbate peroxidase which makes use of ascorbate (AsA) as electron donor and scavenges H2O2. Ascorbate peroxidase and catalase both are H2O2 scavengers, where increase APX activity can overcome
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