Evaluation of three wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars as sensitive Cd biomarkers during the seedling stage

Chuntao He; Zhihai Ding; Samavia Mubeen; Xuying Guo; Huiling Fu; Guorong Xin

doi:10.7717/peerj.8478

Evaluation of three wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars as sensitive Cd biomarkers during the seedling stage

PeerJ. 2020 Jan 27:8:e8478. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8478. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Chuntao He^#^{1

2}, Zhihai Ding^#², Samavia Mubeen², Xuying Guo², Huiling Fu², Guorong Xin^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, School of Agriculture, Sun Yat-sen Universtiy, Guangzhou, China.
² School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen Universtiy, Guangzhou, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Sensitive seedling crops have been developed to monitor Cadmium (Cd) contamination in agricultural soil. In the present study, 18 parameters involving growth conditions and physiological performances were assessed to evaluate Cd-responses of three wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars, Xihan1 (XH), Longzhong1 (LZ) and Dingfeng16 (DF). Principle component analysis illustrated that Factor 1, representing growth performance, soluble sugar content and catalase activity, responded to the Cd treatments in a dose dependent manner, while Factor 2 represented by chlorophyll content and germinating root growth was mainly dependent on cultivar differences. Higher inhibition rates were observed in growth performance than in physiological responses, with the highest inhibition rates of shoot biomasses (39.6%), root length (58.7%), root tip number (57.8%) and bifurcation number (83.2%), even under the lowest Cd treatment (2.5 mg·L^-1). According to the Cd toxicity sensitivity evaluation, DF exerted highest tolerance to Cd stress in root growth while LZ was more sensitive to Cd stress, suggesting LZ as an ideal Cd contaminant biomarker. This study will provide novel insight into the cultivar-dependent response during using wheat seedlings as Cd biomarkers.

Keywords: Cadmium; Cd sensitivity; Physiological response; Root morphology; Triticum aestivum L..

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Water Pollution Control and Governance of Science and Technology Major Special (2009 ZX07528-001) and the Zhang-Hongda Science Foundation of Sun Yat-sen University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.