Isoliquiritigenin, a natural chalcone-type flavonoid, has been recognized as an allelochemical with phytotoxicity to lettuce; however, not enough attention has been paid to the mechanisms of this secondary metabolite. In this work, we investigated the physiological and biochemical mechanisms of isoliquiritigenin on lettuce seedlings. The results show that isoliquiritigenin has a concentration-dependent inhibitory effect on radicle elongation of lettuce seedlings, but no significant impact on lettuce germination. Microscopy analyses suggest that the surface morphology of lettuce radicle tips was atrophied and the intracellular tissue structure deformed at high concentrations. Isoliquiritigenin induced the overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which led to loss of cell viability in the radicle cells. In addition, malondialdehyde (a product of lipid peroxidation) and free proline levels were found to have increased, while chlorophyll content in lettuce seedlings decreased. All these changes suggest that the primary allelopathic mechanism of isoliquiritigenin by which it inhibits radicle elongation in lettuce seedlings might be due to the overproduction of ROS, which causes oxidative damage to membrane lipids and cell death.
Keywords: Lactuca sativa; cell viability; isoliquiritigenin; lipid peroxidation; phytotoxicity; reactive oxygen species.