Abstract
There is increasing evidence for graphene associated plant growth promotion, however, the chronic effects of soil-applied graphene remain largely unexplored. The present study investigated the morphological, physiological and biochemical responses of graphene oxide (GO) on Aloe vera L. over the concentration range of 0–100 mg/L for four months. Our results demonstrated that GO, with the best efficiency at 50 mg/L, could enhance the photosynthetic capacity of leaves, increase the yield and morphological characters of root and leaf, improve the nutrient (protein and amino acid) contents of leaf, without reducing the content of the main bioactive compound aloin. Compared with leaves, the effect of GO on root growth was more obvious. Although the electrolyte leakage and MDA content were raised at high concentrations, GO treatment did not increase the root antioxidant enzymes activity or decrease the root vigor, which excluding typical stress response. Furthermore, injection experiments showed that the GO in vivo did not change the plant growth state obviously. Taken together, our study revealed the role of GO in promoting Aloe vera growth by stimulating root growth and photosynthesis, which would provide theory basis for GO application in agriculture and forestry.
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Data availability
The data sets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This research was funded by Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Shanxi Datong University (2018-B-20), The Program for Scientific and Technological Innovation of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi (2019L0767), Shanxi Datong University Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project (XDC2019232), Science and Technology Achievements Transformation Guide project of Shanxi province (201804D131041), The Program for Scientific and Technological Innovation of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi (2020L0467), Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province (201901D211437) and The National Natural Science Foundation of China (52071192).
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Jianguo Zhao and Haiyan Wang conceived the project; Xiao Zhang and Huifen Cao designed the experiments, performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript; Zhiwen Chen supervised the project; Jin Zhang provided the GO material and performed the FT-IR analysis; Baoyan Xing performed the SEM analysis; Xinyu Li performed Raman spectra analysis. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Zhang, X., Cao, H., Zhao, J. et al. Graphene oxide exhibited positive effects on the growth of Aloe vera L. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 27, 815–824 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-021-00979-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-021-00979-3