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Exogenous brassinosteroid and jasmonic acid improve drought tolerance in Brassica rapa L. genotypes by modulating osmolytes, antioxidants and photosynthetic system

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Abstract

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Exogenously supplied BR and JA help KS101 and KBS3 genotypes of Brassica rapa to alleviate drought stress by modifying osmolyte concentration, levels of antioxidant enzymes and photosynthetic system.

Abstract

Oilseed plants are susceptible to drought stress and a significant loss in yield has been reported during recent decades. Thus, it is imperative to understand the various underlying drought response mechanisms in Brassica oilseed plants to formulate the sustainable strategies to protect the crop yield under water-limiting conditions. Phytohormones play a key role in fine-tuning various regulatory mechanisms for drought stress adaptation in plants, and the present study explores the response of several physiological stress markers by exogenous supplementation of 24-epibrassinolide (EBL) and jasmonic acid (JA) on two genotypes of Brassica rapa, KS101 and KBS3 under drought stress conditions. The exogenous application of BR and JA, separately or in combination, significantly alleviated the drought stress by improving photosynthetic rate, photosynthetic pigments, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate and antioxidant defence. We observed that concentration of different osmolytes increased and membrane damage significantly reduced by the application of BR and JA. The overall activity of antioxidant enzymes POD, CAT, GR, APX and CAT elevated during all the treatments, be it stress alone or in combination with BR and JA, compared to the control. However, we observed that the BR was much better in mitigating the drought stress compared to JA. Thus, the present study suggests that BR and JA supplementation improves the performance of B. rapa on exposure to drought stress, which hints at the critical role of BR and JA in improving crop productivity in drought-prone areas.

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Abbreviations

KC/KS101C:

KS-101control

KD/KS101D:

Drought-treated KS-101 genotype

KDB/KS101DB:

Drought-treated KS-101genotype with exogenously supplied BR

KJD/KS101JD:

Drought-treated KS-101genotype with exogenously supplied JA

KJDB/KS101JDB:

Drought-treated KS-101 genotype with exogenously supplied JA and BR

BC/KBS3C:

KBS-3 control

BD/KBS3D:

Drought-treated KBS-3 genotype

BDB/KBS3DB:

Drought-treated KBS-3 genotype with exogenously supplied BR

BJD/KBS3JD:

Drought-treated KBS-3 genotype with exogenously supplied JA

BJDB/KBS3JDB:

Drought-treated KBS-3 genotype with exogenously supplied JA and BR

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Acknowledgements

Financial support in the form of Junior Research Fellowship to WA, NM and UM is acknowledged. RJ also received a research grant from CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research), India [Sanction No 38(1459)/18/EMR-II, dated 04/04/2018].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Molecular Biology Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, 190 006, Kashmir, India

    Waseem Ahmad Lone, Neelofar Majeed, Umer Yaqoob & Riffat John

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  1. Waseem Ahmad Lone
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  2. Neelofar Majeed
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  3. Umer Yaqoob
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  4. Riffat John
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WA, NM and UY did all the experiments, analysis of data and manuscript writing. RJ conceived the idea, supervised the work and finalised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Riffat John.

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Communicated by Manzer H. Siddiqui.

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Ahmad Lone, W., Majeed, N., Yaqoob, U. et al. Exogenous brassinosteroid and jasmonic acid improve drought tolerance in Brassica rapa L. genotypes by modulating osmolytes, antioxidants and photosynthetic system. Plant Cell Rep 41, 603–617 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-021-02763-9

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