Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Assessment of common plant parameters as biomarkers of air pollution

  • Published:
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Air pollution is a very serious current environmental issue of human society. Large parts of countries, especially the densely populated cities, having high vehicular movement, industries, and factories, are worst affected. Biomarkers are changes in plant parameters that help in easy assessment of the environmental quality of an area at a certain time. Plants can react to different environmental stresses with the most evident responses shown by the leaves. In the present work, we have studied changes in biochemical parameters in the leaves of a mango plant (Mangifera indica), a very common plant in West Bengal, India, which were collected from four different locations in the city of Kolkata which has a high concentration of air pollutants and one control area from a rural region having a low concentration of air pollutants. It was observed that leaves which were exposed to high amounts of harmful air pollutants showed higher accumulation of molecules such as phenol, proline, malondialdehyde, and cellulose with lower amounts of chlorophyll. From this, we can observe that common environmental stress such as air pollution leads to a change in the synthesis of bioactive molecules to resist the effect of stress on the plant. Thus, from these data, it can be concluded that biochemical parameters can serve as efficient biomarkers of the air quality of an area.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alberte, R. S., & Thornber, J. P. (1977). Water stress effects on the content and organization of chlorophyll in mesophyll and bundle sheath chloroplasts of maize. Plant Physiology, 59, 351–353.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Apel, K., & Hirt, H. (2004). Reactive oxygen species: metabolism, oxidative stress, and signal ransduction. Annual Review of Plant Biology, 55, 373–399.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ashraf, M., & Foolad, M. R. (2007a). Roles of glycine betaine and proline in improving plant abiotic stress resistance. Environmental and Experimental Botany, 59, 206–216.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ashraf, M., & Foolad, M. R. (2007b). Improving plant abiotic-stress resistance by exogenous application of osmoprotectants glycinebetaine and proline. Environmental and Experimental Botany, 59, 206–216.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cha-um, S., & Kirdmanee, C. (2009). Effect of salt stress on proline accumulation, photosynthetic ability and growth characters in two maize cultivars. Pakistan Journal of Botany, 41, 87–98.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Del Rio, D., Stewart, A. J., & Pellegrini, N. (2005). A review of recent studies on malondialdehyde as toxic molecule and biological marker of oxidative stress. Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Diseases, 15, 316–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DiCosmo, F., & Towers, G. H. N. (1983). Stress and secondary metabolism in cultured plant cells. In B. N. Timmermann, C. Steelink, & F. A. Loewus (Eds.), Phytochemical adaptations to stress (p. 97). New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gatersleben, B., & Griffin, I. (2016). Environmental stress. Handbook of environmental psychology and quality of life research (pp. 469–485).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerschenzon, J. (1983). Changes in the levels of plant secondary metabolites under water and nutrient stress. In B. N. Timmermann, C. Steelink, & F. A. Loewus (Eds.), Phytochemical adaptations to stress (p. 273). New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Han, Y., Fan, S., Zhang, Q., & Wang, Y. (2013). Effect of heat stress on the MDA, proline and soluble sugar content in leaf lettuce seedlings. Agricultural Sciences, 4, 112–115.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hare, P. D., Cress, W. A., & Van Staden, J. (1999). Proline biosynthesis and degradation: a model system for elucidating stress-related signal transduction. Journal of Experimental Botany, 50, 413–434.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Janmohammadi, M., Zolla, L., & Rinalducci, S. (2015). Low temperature tolerance in plants: changes at the protein level. Phytochemistry., 117, 76–89.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kavi Kishor, P. B., Sangam, S., Amrutha, R. N., Laxmi, P. S., Naidu, K. R., Rao, K. R. S. S., Rao, S., Reddy, K. J., Theriappan, P., & Sreenivasulu, N. (2005). Regulation of proline biosynthesis, degradation, uptake and transport in higher plants: its implications in plant growth and abiotic stress tolerance. Current Science, 88, 424–438.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kesten, C., Menna, A., & Sánchez-Rodríguez, C. (2017). Regulation of cellulose synthesis in response to stress. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 40, 106–113.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liepman, A. H., Wightman, R., Geshi, N., Turner, S. R., & Scheller, H. V. (2010). Arabidopsis a powerful model system for plant cell wall research. The Plant Journal, 61, 1107–1121.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, B. C., Binaykia, A., Chang, P. C., Tiwari, M. K., & Tsao, C. C. (2017). Urban air quality forecasting based on multi-dimensional collaborative Support Vector Regression (SVR): a case study of Beijing-Tianjin-Shijiazhuang. PLoS One, 12.

  • Mandal, S., Yadav, S., Yadav, S., & Nema, R. K. (2009). Antioxidants: a review. Journal of Chemical Pharmacology Research, 1, 102–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masibo, M., & He, Q. (2008). Major mango polyphenols and their potential significance to human health. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 7, 309–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Michalak, A. (2006). Phenolic compounds and their antioxidant activity in plants growing under heavy metal stress. Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, 15, 523–530.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nabizadeh, R., Yousefi, M., & Azimi, F. (2018). Study of particle number size distributions at Azadi terminal in Tehran, comparing high-traffic and no traffic area. MethodsX . , 5, 1549–1555.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peakall, D. W., & Walker, C. H. (1994). The role of biomarkers in environmental assessment (3). Ecotoxicology., 3, 173–179.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sadasivam, S., & Manickam, A. (2008). Biochemical methods. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Ltd., Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanchez, R. A., Hall, A. J., Trapani, N., & Cohen de Hunau, R. (1983). Effects of water stress on the chlorophyll content, nitrogen level and photosynthesis of leaves of two maize genotypes. Photosynthesis Research, 4, 35–47.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shaik, R., & Ramakrishna, W. (2014). Machine learning approaches distinguish multiple stress conditions using stress-responsive genes and identify candidate genes for broad resistance in rice. Plant Physiology, 164, 481–495.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sharma, P., Jha, A. B., Dubey, R. S., & Pessarakli, M. (2012). Reactive oxygen species, oxidative damage, and antioxidative defense mechanism in plants under stressful conditions. Journal of Botany, 1–26.

  • Stermer, B. A., & Hammerschmidt, R. (1984). Heat shock induces resistance to Cladosporium cucumerinum and enhances peroxidase activity in cucumbers. Physiological Plant Pathology, 25, 239.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thorpe, J. R., & Hall, J. L. (1984). Chronology and elicitation of changes in peroxidase and phenylalanine ammonia-lyase activities in wounded wheat leaves in response to inoculationby Botrytis cinerea. Physiological Plant Pathology, 25(36).

  • Valliyodan, B., & Nguyen, H. T. (2006). Understanding regulatory networks and engineering for enhanced drought tolerance in plants. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 9, 189–195.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Vanholme, R., Demedts, B., Morreel, K., Ralph, J., & Boerjan, W. (2010). Lignin biosynthesis and structure. Plant Physiology, 153, 895–905.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, T., McFarlane, H. E., & Persson, S. (2016). The impact of abiotic factors on cellulose synthesis. Journal of Experimental Botany, 67, 543–552.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • West Bengal Pollution Control Board. (n.d.) Kolkata air pollution: real time air quality index (AQI). https://www.aqicn.org/city/kolkata

  • Zhakote, A. G., Negru, P. V., & Gaugash, M. V. (1979). The effect of the duration and spectral composition of natural light on grapevine photosynthesis and frost resistance. Fiziol Biokhim, 55.

  • Zhang, Z., & Huang, R. (2013). Analysis of malondialdehyde, chlorophyll proline, soluble sugar, and glutathione content in Arabidopsis seedling. Bioprotocol., 3, 1–8.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, University of Engineering and Management, University Area, Plot No. III - B/5, New Town, Action Area - III, Kolkata, West Bengal, 700160, India

    Susmita Mukherjee, Ankit Chakraborty, Sahil Mondal, Sreshtha Saha, Adil Haque & Sonali Paul

Authors
  1. Susmita Mukherjee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ankit Chakraborty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sahil Mondal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sreshtha Saha
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Adil Haque
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Sonali Paul
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sonali Paul.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mukherjee, S., Chakraborty, A., Mondal, S. et al. Assessment of common plant parameters as biomarkers of air pollution. Environ Monit Assess 191, 400 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7540-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7540-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation