Efficiency of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Stimulating Germination and Seedling Growth of Soybean Plant Glycine max L. and its Protein Content

Abstract

The results of this study gived a scientific view about the role of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO) in the seeds germination and seedlings growth of soybean (Glycine max L.) when placed on the surface of solid Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with concentrations (0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100µg/ml) of those nanoparticles as stimulating factors. The results showed that the concentration of 40 μg/ml was superior to the percentage of germination of the growth seeds after 7 days which was 100 % at compared to the MS medium alone (control) which gave a percentage of germination of 75% after 15 days and also encouraged the same concentration to obtain the best length of the stems and roots groups at 10, 12 cm respectively, compared to the average lengths of seedlings growing on the control medium, with average lengths of 6 and 8.5 cm for stems and roots respectively. Also, this stimulation of zinc oxide nanoparticles was reflected on the growth and division parameters of cells through the protein content and DNA and RNA content of seedling cells, which increased with the presence of these nanoparticles, especially at a concentration of 40 μg /ml, as the protein content of cells reached 1.92 μg gm and with DNA, RNA contents 12.45 and 99.43 μg /gm respectively, compared to their ratios in seedling cells growing on MS medium.