Phytogenic Selenium Nanoparticles Elicited the Physiological, Biochemical, and Antioxidant Defense System Amelioration of Huanglongbing-Infected 'Kinnow' Mandarin Plants

Muhammad Ikram; Naveed Iqbal Raja; Zia-Ur-Rehman Mashwani; Ahmad Alsayed Omar; Azza H Mohamed; Seema Hassan Satti; Efat Zohra

doi:10.3390/nano12030356

Phytogenic Selenium Nanoparticles Elicited the Physiological, Biochemical, and Antioxidant Defense System Amelioration of Huanglongbing-Infected 'Kinnow' Mandarin Plants

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jan 22;12(3):356. doi: 10.3390/nano12030356.

Authors

Muhammad Ikram¹, Naveed Iqbal Raja¹, Zia-Ur-Rehman Mashwani¹, Ahmad Alsayed Omar^{2

3}, Azza H Mohamed^{3

4}, Seema Hassan Satti¹, Efat Zohra¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Botany, PMAS Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi 46300, Pakistan.
² Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt.
³ Citrus Research and Education Center, University of Florida, IFAS, Lake Alfred, FL 33850, USA.
⁴ Agricultural Chemistry Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Mansoura 33516, Egypt.

Abstract

Citrus greening or huanglongbing (HLB) is commonly known as yellow dragon disease and affects citrus production worldwide. Therefore, it has a significant impact on and deleterious effects in the agro-industrial sector. Significant efforts have been made to combat this disease and mitigate its destructive impact on citrus production, but still, there is no effective biocompatible treatment available to control HLB disorder. This study is considered the first biocompatible approach to evaluate the potential of phytogenic selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) to improve the health of HLB-infected 'Kinnow' mandarin plants. Polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) with specific primers were used to detect HLB disease in 'Kinnow' mandarin plants, and PCR products were sequenced to identify Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), and accession numbers for CLas1 and CLas2, MZ851933 and MZ851934, respectively, were obtained. SeNPs were synthesized by using Allium sativum L. clove extract as a reducing, capping, and stabilizing agent and various techniques such as UV-visible spectrophotometry, energy dispersive X-rays, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) were used to confirm the biogenesis of SeNPs. Different concentrations of SeNPs (25, 50, 75, and 100 mg L^-1) were exogenously applied to HLB-infected 'Kinnow' mandarin plants and obtained spectacular results. The obtained results from the current study proved that 75 mg L^-1 of SeNPs was most effective to improve the chlorophyll, carotenoids, relative water content (RWC), membrane stability index (MSI), total soluble sugar (TSS), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), total flavonoid content (TFC), and total phenolic content (TPC) and significant decrease was observed in hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), malondialdehyde (MDA), and proline (PRO) contents of HLB-infected 'Kinnow' mandarin plants as compared to untreated diseased citrus plants. In conclusion, these results allow us to synthesize the SeNPs formulation as a promising management strategy to treat the HLB disease in citrus plants.

Keywords: Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus; antioxidant system; citrus; huanglongbing; phyto-nanobiotechnology; selenium nanoparticles.