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Exogenous melatonin mitigates chromium toxicity in maize seedlings by modulating antioxidant system and suppresses chromium uptake and oxidative stress

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Abstract

Melatonin, being an endogenous signaling molecule plays important role in plant growth and stress alleviation. The present study was conducted to evaluate the ameliorative role of melatonin against Cr toxicity in maize seedlings. The Cr toxicity (50, 100 and 200 µM) severely affected hydroponically grown seedlings growth in a dose-dependent manner; however, the melatonin (0.5 and 1.0 µM) application markedly restored toxicity-induced growth retardation. Higher dose of melatonin (1.0 µM) was more effective in case of lower Cr toxicity (50 and 100 µM). Exposure of 200 µM Cr caused 45% and 43% reduction in shoot and root lengths and more than 80% reduction in biomass. In case of 200 µM Cr toxicity, application of 1.0 µM MT effectively restored shoot and root lengths reduction (from 45 to 30%) and biomass decline (from 80 to around 60%). Biomass restoration by 1.0 µM melatonin under 50 and 100 µM Cr was even more pronounced bringing it near to control plants having no Cr exposure. Further, both melatonin levels also improved root tips, root diameter, root volume and root surface area that had been damaged by Cr exposure. The melatonin also alleviated Cr-induced chlorophyll and carotenoids inhibition, improved relative water content, and markedly lowered proline and MDA content in shoots. Lower accumulation of MDA and proline, and greater membrane stability indices indicate that the melatonin conferred better plant growth by playing the role of antioxidant and detoxifying oxidative stress creating substances. Although antioxidant enzymes viz. SOD, POD, CAT and APX activities were also elevated by MT, this increase was not significantly different in the most of cases. No significant difference in NPK contents of shoot was observed by Cr and melatonin application indicating the growth retardation being caused directly by Cr intrinsic toxicity and not by nutrients deficiency. The melatonin-based amelioration of Cr toxicity in maize seedlings seems as the result of its nature as antioxidant, and not by activation/elevation of antioxidative enzymatic system.

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Data availability

The datasets used in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors greatly acknowledge the Soil Salinity Laboratory (SSL) of College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan for providing necessary experimental and analytical facilities. The authors are also grateful to all the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript.

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The authors declare that no external funds were received to conduct this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil Science, University College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan

    Zaffar Malik, Sobia Afzal & Ghulam Hassan Abbasi

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, 60800, Pakistan

    Muhammad Dawood

  3. Institute of Soil and Environmental Sciences, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad, 38040, Pakistan

    Muhammad Imran Khan

  4. Key Laboratory of Arable Land Conservation (Middle and Lower Reaches of Yangtze River), Ministry of Agriculture, Huazhong Agricultural University, 430070, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Kamran

  5. Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Dawood & Mostafa Zhran

  6. Soil and Water Research Department, Nuclear Research Center, Atomic Energy Authority, Abou-Zaabl, 13759, Egypt

    Mostafa Zhran

  7. Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Abbottabad, Pakistan

    Malik Tahir Hayat

  8. Department of Plant Pathology, University College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan

    Muhammad Naveed Aslam

  9. Department of Forestry and Wildlife, University College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan

    Muhammad Rafay

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  1. Zaffar Malik
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Contributions

ZM contributed to conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing—original draft preparation, supervision. SA contributed to methodology, validation, investigation, writing—original draft preparation. MD contributed to conceptualization, data curation, visualization, supervision, writing—reviewing and editing. GHA contributed to investigation, data curation. MIK contributed to writing—reviewing and editing. MK and AZM contributed to visualization, software. MTH, MNA and MR contributed to methodology, formal analysis.

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Correspondence to Muhammad Dawood.

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Malik, Z., Afzal, S., Dawood, M. et al. Exogenous melatonin mitigates chromium toxicity in maize seedlings by modulating antioxidant system and suppresses chromium uptake and oxidative stress. Environ Geochem Health 44, 1451–1469 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00908-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00908-z

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