Effect of elevated ozone on the antioxidant response, genomic stability, DNA methylation pattern and yield in three species of Abelmoschus having different ploidy levels

Abstract

The majority of polyploids can withstand many stresses better than their monoploid counterparts; however, there is no proven mechanism that can fully explain the level of tolerance at the biochemical and molecular levels. Here, we make an effort to provide an explanation for this intriguing but perplexing issue using the antioxidant responses, genomic stability, DNA methylation pattern and yield in relation to ploidy level under the elevated level of ozone in Abelmoschus cytotypes. The outcome of this study inferred that the elevated ozone causes an increase in reactive oxygen species leading to enhanced lipid peroxidation, DNA damage and DNA de-methylation in all the Abelmoschus cytotypes. The monoploid cytotype of Abelmoschus, that is Abelmoschus moschatus L., experienced the highest oxidative stress under elevated O3, resulting in maximum DNA damage and DNA de-methylation leading to the maximum reduction in yield. While the diploid (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) and triploid (Abelmoschus caillei A. Chev.) cytotypes of Abelmoschus with lower oxidative stress result in lesser DNA damage and DNA de-methylation which ultimately leads to lower yield reduction. The result of this experiment explicitly revealed that polyploidy confers better adaptability in the case of Abelmoschus cytotypes under ozone stress. This study can further be used as a base to understand the mechanism behind the ploidy-induced stress tolerance in other plants mediated by gene dosage effect.