Abstract
Processes of seed water absorption and germination are critical for seedling establishment. To investigate the effect of tetracycline (TC), a major-use antibiotic, at low levels (1–5 nM) on the two processes, we selected two sensitive species of Brassica seeds, including Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L.) and edible rape (Brassica napus L.), to establish the models of seed water absorption and germination. And every species of the seeds has two cultivars with different initial germination time used for studying. In the experiment at seed water absorption process, results showed that TC retarded the process at ≥ 1 nM, but it depended on seed cultivars for all species. However, the surface structure of seed coat was not related to seed water absorption. In the experiment at seed germination process, results showed that TC delayed the process at ≥ 1 nM, and it depended on seed cultivars for Chinese cabbage but edible rape. Because the longer the duration of the seeds being exposed to TC, the more susceptible the seeds were to TC. Moreover, the results of correlation analysis indicated that the effect of TC on seed water absorption at the early stage would influence that on seed germination at the later stage. It should be paid attention on the negative effects of TC at environmental levels on plants during early development stages which were revealed in our study.
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Funding
This work was funded by the Shanxi Province Award Program for Excellent Young Doctor [No. SXBYKY2021010], the Shanxi Province Key R & D Plan Project [No. 201903D211012-05], the Shanxi 1331 Funding Project [No. 20211331–15], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 51879101, No. 51679082, No. 51521006], the Hunan Science and Technology Innovation Program [No. 2018RS3037], and the Hunan Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars [No. 2019JJ20002].
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Yuan Luo mainly designed and performed the experiments. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yuan Luo and Yuan Liu. Jie Liang improved the design of the experiments. The observation on the structure of the seed coat surface was done by Hui Zhang. Material and method preparation were performed by Haibo Zhang and Hongyan Cheng. All of the authors analyzed and interpreted the data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Luo, Y., Liu, Y., Zhang, H. et al. Antibiotic of tetracycline can delay water absorption and germination of Brassica seeds even at low concentrations and it is dependent on seed inherent characteristics. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 46885–46897 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18553-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18553-z