Differential expression of superoxide dismutase gene in response to magnesium salt in oryza sativa (L) plants grown in arsenic infested soil of gangetic West Bengal

Abstract

Arsenic is a matter of concern across the globe especially for the countries like India where a good number of people depend on rice as the staple source of carbohydrate. Arsenic has lot of deleterious effects on the plant and through food chain gets accumulated to human being and is highly toxic and carcinogenic for human health. The present research is a biomarker based study to understand the difference in arsenic induced toxicity with application of Mg-salt. The primary objective was to see the difference in the expression of Superoxide dismutase gene. In the electrophoresis, sample with Mg-salt treatment gave less dense band compared to the control one. This was also corroborated with the reduction in antioxidant and stress biomarkers like, phenol, malonaldehyde, flavonoid, superoxide dismutase content. On the contrary chlorophyll content showed an increase of more than twice and protein content 1.7 times in Mg-salt treated plants compared to the control. Interestingly root arsenic content showed almost two times increased value and shoot arsenic content showed decrease of 1.5 times in Mg-salt treated plants. It can be deciphered that Mg might have acted as a reason for less translocation of arsenic in case of paddy plant.