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ARTICLE

Effect of mixed salt stress on malondialdehyde, proteins and antioxidant enzymes of Leymus chinensis in three leaf colors

Zhou C^1,2, CA Busso³, YG Yang², Z Zhang⁴, ZW Wang¹, YF Yang⁵, XG Han¹

1 State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang, 110016, China.
2 School of Life Sciences, Liaoning University, Shenyang, 110036, China.
3 Departamento de Agronomía. CERZOS (CONICET), Universidad Nacional del Sur, 8000, Bahía Blanca, Argentina.
4 College of Biology and Environmental Engineering, Shenyang University, Shenyang, 110044, China.
5 Key Laboratory for Vegetation Ecology, Ministry of Education, Institute of Grassland Science, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China.
Address correspondence to: Han XG, State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang, 110016, China. Tel: (+86) 10-62836636, e-mail: xghan@ibcas.ac.cn ; zhou_yanhan@163.com

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2017, 86(all), 205-213. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2017.86.205

Abstract

The mixed salt stress is common in nature. Salt stress always affects plant growth. Different plant species have different adaptive capacity to salty soils. Leymus chinensis is an herbaceous plant with different leaf colors. However, little research was conducted to explore the different tolerance mechanisms to salt stress among the three different leaf colour genotypes of Leymus chinensis (grey green, transitional color, yellow green). Pot experiments for Leymus chinensis in three leaf colors were conducted under mixed salt treatments in 2010. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and protein concentrations, and the activity of various antioxidant enzymes [i.e., superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glutathione reductase (GR), dehydroascorbate reductase (DHAR) and monodehy- droascorbate reductase (MDHAR)] were determined and compared among the three leaf color genotypes of Leymus chinensis. The concentrations of MDA and protein, and the activity of antioxidant enzymes showed an increasing trend with increasing pHs in almost all three leaf colors, and all of them became highest when salt stress and pH values were also highest. Moreover, antioxidant enzymes were the highest in the grey-green leaf color, and the lowest in the yellow green leaf color after exposure to the same pH treatment. The results suggested that all three leaf colors of Leymus chinensis were tolerant to salt stress, and the salt-tolerance declined according to the order of grey green > transitional color > yellow green of Leymus chinensis. This study can give us a better understanding of the intra-species adaptation to mixed salt soils.

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