Among numerous contaminants, the ubiquitous occurrence of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the environment and their plausible harmful impact on nontarget organisms have made them one of the most important areas of concern in recent years. Crop plants can also potentially be exposed to NSAIDs, since the concentration of these pharmaceuticals is constantly rising in the surface water and soil. Our goal was to evaluate the stress response of two crop plants, maize and tomato, to treatment with selected NSAIDs, naproxen and diclofenac. The focus of the research was on the growth response, photosynthetic efficiency, selected oxidative stress factors (such as the H2O2 level and the rate of lipid peroxidation) as well as the total phenolic content, which represents the non-enzymatic protectants against oxidative stress. The results indicate that susceptibility to the NSAIDs that were tested is dependent on the plant species. A higher sensitivity of tomato manifested in growth inhibition, a decrease in the content of the photosynthetic pigments and a reduction in the maximum quantum efficiency of PSII and the activity of PSII, which was estimated using the Fv/Fm and Fv/F0 ratios. Based on the growth results, it was also possible to reveal that diclofenac had a more toxic effect on tomato. In contrast to tomato, in maize, neither the content of the photosynthetic pigments nor growth appeared to be affected by DFC and NPX. However, both drugs significantly decreased in maize Fv and Fm, which are particularly sensitive to stress. A higher H2O2 concentration accompanied, in most cases, increasing lipid peroxidation, indicating that oxidative stress occurred in response to the selected NSAIDs in the plant species that were studied. The higher phenolic content of the plants after NSAIDs treatment may, in turn, indicate the activation of defense mechanisms in response to the oxidative stress that is triggered by these drugs.
Keywords: diclofenac (DFC); maize; naproxen (NPX); nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs); tomato.