Abstract
Magnesium hydride (MgH2) is a promising solid-state hydrogen source with high storage capacity (7.6 wt%). Although it is recently established that MgH2 has potential applications in medicine because it sustainably supplies hydrogen gas (H2), the biological functions of MgH2 in plants have not been observed yet. Also, the slow reaction kinetics restricts its practical applications. In this report, MgH2 (98% purity; 0.5–25 μm size) was firstly used as a hydrogen generation source for postharvest preservation of flowers. Compared with the direct hydrolysis of MgH2 in water, the efficiency of hydrogen production from MgH2 hydrolysis could be greatly improved when the citrate buffer solution is introduced. These results were further confirmed in the flower vase experiment by showing higher efficiency in increasing the production and the residence time of H2 in solution, compared with hydrogen-rich water. Mimicking the response of hydrogen-rich water and sodium hydrosulfide (a hydrogen sulfide donor), subsequent experiments discovered that MgH2-citrate buffer solution not only stimulated hydrogen sulfide (H2S) synthesis but also significantly prolonged the vase life of cut carnation flowers. Meanwhile, redox homeostasis was reestablished, and the increased transcripts of representative senescence-associated genes, including DcbGal and DcGST1, were partly abolished. By contrast, the discussed responses were obviously blocked by the inhibition of endogenous H2S with hypotaurine, an H2S scavenger. These results clearly revealed that MgH2-supplying H2 could prolong the vase life of cut carnation flowers via H2S signaling, and our results, therefore, open a new window for the possible application of hydrogen-releasing materials in agriculture.
Highlights
Hydrogen is an ideal energy carrier that is being increasingly used in both power generation applications and transportation
By using pharmacological and molecular approaches, we discovered that the combined treatment of MgH2 and citrate buffer solution (CBS) could remarkably prolong the vase life of a cut carnation flower, compared with either treatment with MgH2 or hydrogen-rich water (HRW), or CBS alone
Correlating with the changes in endogenous H2S production (Figure 3), the results indicated that endogenous H2S might participate in MgH2-CBSprolonged the vase life of cut carnation flowers
Summary
Hydrogen is an ideal energy carrier that is being increasingly used in both power generation applications and transportation. Hydrogen gas (H2) has been documented having a range of biological effects and gradually utilized in medicine and agriculture (Ohsawa et al, 2007; Xie et al, 2012; Zeng et al, 2013; Wu et al, 2019). The storage methods include pressurized gas, a cryogenic. The supplementation of H2 for biological research includes a gas cylinder and water electrolysis, and H2 is normally dissolved in water and saline (Ohta, 2011; Xie et al, 2014; Li et al, 2018; Su et al, 2018). The growing development of solid hydrogen-storage materials may provide ways to improve the issues about production and storage of H2, considering portable, safety, large hydrogen contents, and sustainable hydrogen supply of solid-state storage (Hirscher et al, 2020)
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