Book with abstracts from the COST Action 0905 meeting in ... - UMB

RESPONSES OF SORGHUM PLANTS TO STRESS CAUSED BY
METAL EXPOSURE
Šárka Petrová, Katarína Jusková, Petr Soudek, Tomáš Vaněk
Laboratory of Plant Biotechnologies, Joint Laboratory of Institute of Experimental Botany
AS CR and Crop Research Institute, Rozvojová 263, 165 02 Prague 6, Czech Republic
Keywords: abiotic stress, plant enzymes, Sorghum bicolor, toxic metals
Sorghum bicolor L. is an important crop due to its wide use as food, feed and
energy crop. It is unique due to a specific compounds content (phytates, tannins), which
affect its nutritional value. These compounds form complexes with calcium, copper, iron,
manganese and zinc, thereby worsen the availability of these essential elements. Increased
concentrations of essential elements in agricultural soils are the result of human activity,
abundant in nature. Higher concentrations of zinc have resulted in higher income of the
plant. On the other hand, most of the land is contaminated with more than one element,
especially with toxic metals, and the plant receives not only more zinc, but also more
unnecessary toxic elements like cadmium, lead, nickel, cobalt and arsenic. What’s more,
the concentrations of these metals are so toxic they can cause death of plants or reduce
their production. Their toxicity is mediated by reactive oxygen species that cause oxidative
stress.
In this study, we investigated the temporal sequence of physiological reactions,
including changes in chlorophylls contents and antioxidative enzymes activities and also
metal contents in roots and shoots of Sorghum bicolor seedlings after metal exposure.
Acknowledgement: This work was supported by project NPVII 2B08058.