Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Biology Department, Faculty of Sciences, Gorgan Unit, Islamic Azad University, Gorgan, Iran
2 Payam-e-Noor University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Several defense systems are cooperating together in plants to cope with stressful situations. One of these stresses is heavy metals pollution of the plant's growing environment. In This article, the effect of different concentrations of copper was studied on photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic pigments, non-enzymatic and enzymatic defence systems in Portulaca oleracea L. In order to show the effect of so-called heavy metal, copper, on pigments, anthocyanines, flavonoides, phenolic compounds and the activity of antioxidant enzymes some experiments were performed in a completely randomized design and statistical differences were applied at the p ≤ 0.05 level. After planting the plants with the same conditions in the sterile bed, they were nourished with Hoagland's liquid medium. The bed was then amended with graded concentrations (0, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 1500 µM) of copper salt, in the form of CuSO4.5H2O, separately as treatments and with the control group. Three replicates were maintained for each treatment and also for control groups. After ten days of applying the treatments, the plants were harvested for performing the experiments. After measuring and applying the statistical differences at the 0.05 level via SPSS software, these results were obtained: The amount of chlorophyll a and b was decreased. Amounts of carotenoides, anthocyanines, flavonoides and phenolic compounds were significantly increased. Peroxidase activity was increased and catalase activity was decreased in both shoots and roots.
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