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Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Effects of iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4) and salinity on growth, photosynthesis, antioxidant activity and distribution of mineral elements in wheat (Triticum aestivum)

Vladimir D. Kreslavski https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6789-5721 A * , Alexander N. Shmarev A , Anatoly A. Ivanov A , Sergey K. Zharmukhamedov A , Valeria Strokina A , Anatoly Kosobryukhov A , Min Yu B , Suleyman I. Allakhverdiev https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0452-232X A C D and Sergey Shabala https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2345-8981 B E *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Institute of Basic Biological Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino 142290, Russia.

B International Research Centre for Environmental Membrane Biology, Foshan University, Foshan 528000, China.

C K.A. Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 127276, Russia.

D Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey.

E School of Biological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.


Handling Editor: Honghong Wu

Functional Plant Biology 50(11) 932-940 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP23085
Submitted: 7 May 2023  Accepted: 27 July 2023   Published: 14 August 2023

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Soil salinisation is one of the main abiotic stresses decreasing crop productivity. Here, we show that the plant treatment with iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles (NPs) may be a promising solution for reducing the negative impact of soil salinity on plant performance. For this purpose, effects of the NPs on growth, photosynthesis, pro-/antioxidant, redox balance and the content of mineral elements in 19-day-old wheat (Triticum aestivum) plants under soil salinity were studied. Seed treatment with NPs (200 and 500 mg L−1) enhanced growth and photosynthetic rate in leaves. Moderate salinity stress (150 mM NaCl) led to a decrease in plant biomass as well as the rate of photosynthesis and PSII activity; leaf photosynthetic characteristics were also suppressed by lower (75 mM NaCl) salinity treatment. However, seed pre-treatment with the NPs partially eliminated the negative effect of the salt on growth, PSII activity and photosynthesis. Also, we observed a decrease in the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) and an increase in ascorbate and total peroxidase activity in the plant leaves upon combined treatment with NaCl and the NPs compared with treatment with NaCl alone. The combined treatment with the NPs and salinity also led to a noticeable increase in the content of Fe and Mn in the shoot. It was concluded that Fe3O4 NPs can enhance plant growth by improving photosynthetic characteristics, antioxidant balance and the availability of iron and manganese ions, under conditions of soil salinisation.

Keywords: antioxidants, growth, iron oxide, nanoparticles, photosynthesis, soil salinity, stress, Triticum aestivum L.

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