Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Spermidine sprays alleviate the water deficit-induced oxidative stress in finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn.) plants

  • Original Article
  • Published:
3 Biotech Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Severe drought stress (water deficit) in finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn.) plants significantly reduced total leaf chlorophyll and relative water content in shoots and roots, whereas electrolyte leakage, concentrations of proline and hydrogen peroxide, as well as caspase-like activity were significantly increased. The role of spermidine in plant defence to water-stress was investigated after subjected to various drought treatments. Three weeks of daily spermidine sprays (0.2 mM) at early flowering stage significantly changed shoot and root growth, in both fresh and dry weights terms. At 75% of water deficit stress, leaves accumulated twice as much proline as unstressed plants, and roots accumulated thrice. Plants treated with spermidine under water stress showed lower electrolyte leakage, hydrogen peroxide and caspase-like activity than unstressed and untreated control.

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

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahmed IM, Nadira UA, Bibi N, Cao F, He X, Zhang G, Wu F (2014) Secondary metabolism and antioxidants are involved in the tolerance to drought and salinity, separately and combined, in Tibetan wild barley. Env Exp Bot 111:1–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alcazar R, Marco F, Cuevas J, Patron M, Ferrando A, Carrasco P, Tiburcio A, Altabella T (2006) Involvement of polyamines in plant response to abiotic stress. Biotechnol Lett 28:1867–1876

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Anjum SA, Xie X, Wang LC, Saleem MF, Man C, Lei W (2011) Morphological, physiological and biochemical responses of plants to drought stress. Afr J Agri Res 6:2026–2032

    Google Scholar 

  • Barrs HD, Weatherley PE (1962) A re-examination of the relative turgidity techniques for estimating water deficits in leaves. Austr J Biol Sci 15:413–428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartwal A, Arora S (2017) Drought stress-induced enzyme activity and mdar and apx gene expression in tolerant and susceptible genotypes of Eleusine coracana (L.). In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant 53:41–49

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bates LS, Waldren RP, Teare ID (1973) Rapid determination of free proline for water-stress studies. Plant Soil 39:205–207

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bonneau L, Ge Y, Drury GE, Gallois P (2008) What happened to plant caspases? J Exp Bot 59:491–499

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bouchereau A, Aziz A, Larher F, Martin-Tanguy J (1999) Polyamines and environmental challenges: recent development. Plant Sci 140:103–125

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Busaidi KTSA, Farag KM (2015) The use of electrolyte leakage procedure in assessing heat and salt tolerance of Ruzaiz date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cultivar regenerated by tissue culture and offshoots and treatments to alleviate the stressful injury. J Horti Forestry 7:104–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Capell T, Bassie L, Christou P (2004) Modulation of the polyamine biosynthetic pathway in transgenic rice confers tolerance to drought stress. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:9909–9914

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ceasar SA, Ignacimuthu S (2011) Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) using shoot apex explants. Plant Cell Rep 30:1759–1770

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chethan S, Malleshi NG (2007) Finger millet polyphenols: optimization of extraction and the effect of pH on their stability. Food Chem 105:862–870

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • del Pozo O, Lam E (1998) Caspases and programmed cell death in the hypersensitive response of plants to pathogens. Current Biol 8:1129–1132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrando A, Carrasco P, Cuevas JC, Altabella T, Tiburcio AF (2004) Integrated molecular analysis of the polyamine pathway in abiotic stress signalling. In: Amancio S, Stulen I (eds) Nitrogen acquisition and assimilation in higher plants. Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht, pp 207–230

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gill SS, Tuteja N (2010) Polyamines and abiotic stress tolerance in plants. Plant Signal Behav 5:26–33

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Goyal M, Asthir B (2010) Polyamine catabolism influences antioxidative defense mechanism in shoots and roots of five wheat genotypes under high temperature stress. Plant Growth Regul 60:13–25

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Groppa MD, Tomaro ML, Benavides MP (2001) Polyamines as protectors against cadmium or copper-induced oxidative damage in sunflower leaf discs. Plant Sci 161:481–488

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hussain SS, Ali M, Ahmad M, Siddique KHM (2011) Polyamines: natural and engineered abiotic and biotic stress tolerance in plants. Biotechnol Adv 29:300–311

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ignacimuthu S, Ceasar SA (2012) Development of transgenic finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.) resistant to leaf blast disease. J Biosci 37:135–147

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2007) Fourth assessment report—climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Contribution of working group II to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 976

    Google Scholar 

  • Jimenez-Bremont JF, Flora AB, Hernandez-Lucero E, Rodriguez-Kessler M, Acosta-Gallegos JA, Ramirez-Pimentel JG (2006) Proline accumulation in two bean cultivars under salt stress and the effect of polyamines and ornithine. Biol Plant 50:763–766

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kakkar RK, Sawhney VK (2002) Polyamine research in plants—a changing perspective. Physiol Plant 116:281–292

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kasukabe Y, He L, Nada K, Misawa S, Ihara I, Tachibana S (2004) Overexpression of spermidine synthase enhances tolerance to multiple environmental stress and up-regulates the expression of various stress-regulated genes in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell Physiol 45:712–722

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kusano T, Yamaguchi K, Berberich T, Takahashi Y (2007) Advances in polyamine research in 2007. J Plant Res 120:345–350

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lazzarato L, Trebbi G, Pagnucco C, Franchin C, Torrigiani P, Betti L (2009) Exogenous spermidine, arsenic and β-aminobutyric acid modulate tobacco resistance to tobacco mosaic virus, and affect local and systemic glucosylsalicylic acid levels and arginine decarboxylase gene expression in tobacco leaves. J Plant Physiol 166:90–100

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Li S, Jin H, Zhang Q (2016) The effect of exogenous spermidine concentration on polyamine metabolism and salt tolerance in Zoysiagrass (Zoysia japonica Steud) subjected to short-term salinity stress. Front Plant Sci 7:1221

    Google Scholar 

  • Lichtenthaler HK (1987) Chlorophylls and carotenoids: pigments of photosynthetic biomembranes. Methods Enzymol 148:350–382

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lutts S, Almansouri M, Kinet J (2004) Salinity and water stress have contrasting effects on the relationship between growth and cell viability during and after stress exposure in durum wheat callus. Plant Sci 167:9–18

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lv WT, Lin B, Zhang M, Hua XJ (2011) Proline accumulation is inhibitory to Arabidopsis seedlings during heat stress. Plant Physiol 156:1921–1933

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Marco F, Alcazar R, Tiburcio AF, Carrasco P (2011) Interactions between polyamines and abiotic stress pathway responses unraveled by transcriptome analysis of polyamine overproducers. Omics A J Integr Biol 15:775–781

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mittler R (2002) Oxidative stress, antioxidants and stress tolerance. Trends Plant Sci 7:405–410

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mostofa MG, Yoshida N, Fujita M (2014) Spermidine pretreatment enhances heat tolerance in rice seedlings through modulating antioxidative and glyoxalase systems. Plant Growth Regul 73:31–44

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nirgude M, Babu BK, Shambhavi Y, Singh UM, Upadhyaya HD, Kumar A (2014) Development and molecular characterization of genic molecular markers for grain protein and calcium content in finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.). Mol Biol Rep 41:1189–1200

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pollastrini M, Desotgiu R, Camin F, Ziller L, Gerosa G, Marzuoli R, Bussotti F (2014) Severe drought events increase the sensitivity to ozone on poplar clones. Env Exp Bot 100:94–104

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Radhakrishnan R, Lee IJ (2013) Ameliorative effects of spermine against osmotic stress through antioxidants and abscisic acid changes in soybean pods and seeds. Acta Physiol Plant 35:263–269

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rahman H, Jagadeeshselvam N, Valarmathi R, Sachin B, Sasikala R, Senthil N, Sudhakar D, Robin S, Muthurajan R (2014) Transcriptome analysis of salinity responsiveness in contrasting genotypes of finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) through RNA-sequencing. Plant Mol Biol 85:485–503

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Roxas VP, Lodhi SA, Garrett DK, Mahan JR, Allen RD (2000) Stress tolerance in transgenic tobacco seedlings that over express glutathione S-transferase/glutathione peroxidase. Plant Cell Physiol 41:1229–1234

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sapeta H, Costa JM, Lourenco T, Maroco J, van der Linde P (2013) Drought stress response in Jatropha curcas: growth and physiology. Environ Exp Bot 85:76–84

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Satish L, Ceasar SA, Shilpha J, Rency SA, Rathinapriya P, Ramesh M (2015) Direct plant regeneration from in vitro-derived shoot apical meristems of finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.). In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant 51:192–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satish L, Rathinapriya P, Ceasar SA, Rency AS, Pandian S, Rameshkumar R, Subramanian A, Ramesh M (2016a) Effects of cefotaxime, amino acids and carbon source on somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration in four Indian genotypes of foxtail millet (Setaria italica L.). In Vitro Cell Dev Biol Plant 52:140–153

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Satish L, Rathinapriya P, Rency AS, Ceasar SA, Pandian S, Rameshkumar R, Ramesh M (2016b) Somatic embryogenesis and regeneration using Gracilaria edulis and Padina boergesenii seaweed liquid extracts and genetic fidelity in finger millet (Eleusine coracana). J Appl Phycol 28:2083–2098

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satish L, Rathinapriya P, Rency AS, Ceasar SA, Prathibha M, Pandian S, Rameshkumar R, Ramesh M (2016c) Effect of salinity stress on finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn): histochemical and morphological analysis of coleoptile and coleorhizae. Flora 222:111–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satish L, Rency AS, Rathinapriya P, Ceasar SA, Pandian S, Rameshkumar R, Rao TB, Balachandran SM, Ramesh M (2016d) Influence of plant growth regulators and spermidine on somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration in four Indian genotypes of finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn). Plant Cell Tiss Org Cult 124:15–31

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Satish L, Ceasar SA, Ramesh M (2017) Improved Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and direct plant regeneration in four cultivars of finger millet (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.). Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 131:547–565

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Shah F, Huang J, Cui K, Nie L, Shah T, Chen C, Wang K (2011) Impact of high-temperature stress on rice plant and its traits related to tolerance. J Agric Sci 149:545–556

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Singh NP, Bantilan C, Byjesh K (2014) Vulnerability and policy relevance to drought in the semi-arid tropics of Asia—a retrospective analysis. Weather Climate Extremes 3:54–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slama I, M’Rabet R, Ksouri R, Talbi O, Debez A, Abdelly C (2015) Water deficit stress applied only or combined with salinity affects physiological parameters and antioxidant capacity in Sesuvium portulacastrum. Flora 213:69–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabot PT, Adams JB (2013) Early responses of Bassia diffusa (Thunb.) Kuntze to submergence for different salinity treatments. South Afr J Bot 84:19–29

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Verma S, Mishra SN (2005) Putrescine alleviation of growth in salt stressed Brassica juncea by inducing antioxidative defense System. J Plant Physiol 162:669–677

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Waie B, Rajam MV (2003) Effect of increased polyamine biosynthesis on stress responses in transgenic tobacco by introduction of human S-adenosylmethionine gene. Plant Sci 164:727–734

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wang H, Zhu X, Li H, Cui J, Liu C, Chen X, Zhang W (2014) Induction of caspase-3-like activity in rice following release of cytochrome-f from the chloroplast and subsequent interaction with the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Sci Rep 4:5989

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xu S, Li J, Zhang X, Wei H, Cui L (2006) Effects of heat acclimation pretreatment on changes of membrane lipid peroxidation, antioxidant metabolites, and ultrastructure of chloroplasts in two cool-season turfgrass species under heat stress. Environ Exp Bot 56:274–285

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yamaguchi K, Takahashi Y, Berberich T, Imai A, Takahashi T, Michael AJ, Kusano T (2007) A protective role for the polyamine spermine against drought stress in Arabidopsis. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 352:486–490

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yang J, Zhang J, Liu K, Wang Z, Liu L (2007) Involvement of polyamines in the drought resistance of rice. J Exp Bot 58:1545–1555

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yin ZP, Li S, Ren J, Song XS (2014) Role of spermidine and spermine in alleviation of drought-induced oxidative stress and photosynthetic inhibition in Chinese dwarf cherry (Cerasus humilis) seedling. Plant Growth Regul 74:209–218

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yoshida S, Forno DA, Cock JH, Gomez KA (1976) Laboratory manual for physiological studies of rice. International Rice Research Institute, Manila

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Z, Honda C, Kita M, Nakayama CHM, Moriguchi T (2003) Structure and expression of spermidine synthase genes in apple: two cDNAs are spatially and developmentally regulated through alternative splicing. Mol Gen Genom 268:799–807

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang W, Jiang B, Li W, Song H, Yu Y, Chen J (2009) Polyamines enhance chilling tolerance of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) through modulating antioxidative system. Sci Horti 122:200–208

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou Y, Shao HB (2008) The responding relationship between plants and environment is the essential principle for agricultural sustainable development on the globe. C.R. Biologies 331:321–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

L. Satish thanks the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi, India for financial support in the form of UGC-BSR SRF (UGC order no: F.4-1/2006 (BSR)/7-326/2011-BSR). We thank the Department of Small Millets, Millet Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India for providing seed material used in this study. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the Bioinformatics Infrastructure Facility of Alagappa University (funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, grant no. BT/BI/25/001/2006) for providing the computational facility. The first author gratefully expresses gratitude to Prof. Arieh Zaritsky, Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel, improved the language and shape of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, Alagappa University, Science Campus, Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, 630 003, India

    Lakkakula Satish, Arockiam Sagina Rency & Manikandan Ramesh

  2. Department of Biotechnology Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of Negev, 84105, Beer Sheva, Israel

    Lakkakula Satish

  3. The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Bergman Campus, 84105, Beer Sheva, Israel

    Lakkakula Satish

Authors
  1. Lakkakula Satish
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Arockiam Sagina Rency
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Manikandan Ramesh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lakkakula Satish or Manikandan Ramesh.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Satish, L., Rency, A.S. & Ramesh, M. Spermidine sprays alleviate the water deficit-induced oxidative stress in finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn.) plants. 3 Biotech 8, 63 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-018-1097-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-018-1097-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation