Priming methods affected deterioration speed of primed rice seeds by regulating reactive oxygen species accumulation, seed respiration and starch degradation

Muyao Ren; Biao Tan; Jiayi Xu; Zhengpeng Yang; Huabin Zheng; Qiyuan Tang; Xiaoli Zhang; Weiqin Wang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1267103

Priming methods affected deterioration speed of primed rice seeds by regulating reactive oxygen species accumulation, seed respiration and starch degradation

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Oct 4:14:1267103. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1267103. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Muyao Ren¹, Biao Tan¹, Jiayi Xu¹, Zhengpeng Yang¹, Huabin Zheng¹, Qiyuan Tang¹, Xiaoli Zhang², Weiqin Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Agronomy, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China.
² Rice Research Institute of Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Rice Genetics and Breeding, Nanning, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Seed priming is a pre-sowing seed treatment that is beneficial for rice seed germination and seedling growth, but the reduced seed longevity after seed priming greatly limited its adoption. The deterioration of primed seeds showed large differences among different studies, and the priming method might play an important role in regulating the deterioration speed of primed seeds. However, whether and how the priming method affected the deterioration of primed rice seeds during storage remains unknown.

Methods: In this study, two typical seed priming methods, namely hydropriming (HP) and osmopriming (PEG) were compared under artificially accelerated aging conditions, the changes in germination performance, starch metabolism, seed respiration and reactive oxygen species accumulation before and after accelerated aging were determined.

Results and discussion: Hydroprimed rice seeds exhibited significantly faster deterioration speed than that of PEG-primed seeds in terms of germination speed and percentage. Meanwhile, α-amylase activity and total soluble sugar content in hydroprimed seeds were reduced by 19.3% and 10.0% respectively after aging, as compared with PEG-primed seeds. Such effects were strongly associated with the increased reactive oxygen generation and lipid peroxidation, as the content of superoxide anion, hydrogen peroxide and malondialdehyde in hydroprimed seeds were 4.4%, 12.3% and 13.7% higher than those in PEG-primed seeds after aging, such effect could be attributed to the increased respiratory metabolism in hydroprimed seeds. In addition, the simultaneous use of N-acetylcysteine with HP and PEG priming greatly inhibited the deterioration of primed rice seeds, suggesting that the ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species may be the key factor affecting the speed of deterioration in primed rice seeds during storage.

Keywords: priming methods; reactive oxygen species; rice; seed deterioration; seed priming.

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (32201897), Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2020GXNSFAA297071).