Abstract
Salicylic acid (SA) is an important plant regulator which is involved in growth, development, and response to stress. This study was aimed to evaluate some physiological and biochemical responses of Artemisia aucheri Boiss. under drought stress after exogenous SA treatment. Experiment was performed in vitro. Polyethylene glycol (PEG/6000) with 0, 2 and 4 % (w/v) was used in MS medium to simulate drought stress and different concentrations of SA (0, 0.01 and 0.1mM) were added. After four weeks, SA alleviated the negative effects of PEG on dry and fresh mass as well as chlorophyll and carotenoid contents. Under drought stress, application of SA decreased storage polysaccharides and increased soluble carbohydrates respectively. Although PEG had no significant effect on flavonoid content, it increased significantly anthocyanin and total phenol content, total antioxidant capacity, PAL (phenylalanine ammonia-lyase) and TAL (tyrosine ammonia-lyase) activity and SA treatment improved these parameters significantly. According to the current data, it was concluded that SA increased drought tolerance of Artemisia aucheri by increasing biosynthesis of phenolic compounds, improvement of TAL and PAL activity as well as also by increased content of soluble carbohydrates.
Highlights
The genus Artemisia belongs to Asteraceae family
It is known that exogenous Salicylic acid (SA) application enhanced the growth and photosynthetic pigments in several plant species treated under water stress such as wheat (Singh and Usha, 2003), Nigella sativa (Kabiri et al, 2014), Zoysiagrass (Chen et al, 2014), mustard (Nazar et al, 2015)
Increase in fresh and dry mass by SA application under drought stress can be related to the positive effect of SA on photosynthetic pigments which led to the improvement in growth
Summary
The genus Artemisia belongs to Asteraceae family. There are 500 species of Artemisia in Asia, Europe and North America. Thirty four species of this family are known as wild spicies all over Iran. One of these species is Artemisia aucheri Boiss which has limited ecological distribution, it is endemic to mountainous areas of Iran and surroundings (Mozaffarian et al, 2010). In traditional medicine it is used as astringent and disinfectant and has an antileishmanial, antiparasitic, and antioxidant activities (Asghari et al, 2012). Camphor, 1, 8-cineole, trans-verbenol, chrysanthenone, mesitylene, α-pinene, acyclic monoterpenes, and monoterpene hydroperoxides are bioactive compounds extracted from this plant (Rustaiyan et al, 1987)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
