Abstract
Acidic soils with elevated aluminum (Al) saturations are worldwide distributed and harm the crop production in most of the tropical and subtropical regions. Under these conditions, root elongation may be impaired and thus disturbs water and nutrient uptake. Consequently, physiological responses of plants challenged with excess Al may resemble those of drought stresses. Here, we hypothesized that drought tolerant plants are also Al tolerant due to changes in growth, metabolic and physiological adjustments in leaves. Two maize genotypes, BRS1010 and BRS1055, sensitive and tolerant to drought, respectively, were hydroponically grown under controlled conditions and challenged with two Al concentrations (0 and 100 µM AlCl3) for 5 days. After treatment with Al, BRS1055 plants displayed increased leaf and stem elongation whereas the relative root growth rate remained unchanged. This was accompanied by unaltered root structure, photosynthetic efficiency and leaf primary metabolism. In sharp contrast, the BRS1010 plants were sensitive to Al, exhibiting a reduction in leaf and stem elongation and biomass accumulation in shoot and root, as well as greater structural damages in root tips. Additionally, in response to Al, lipid peroxidation increased in BRS1010 leaves in parallel to inhibition of photosynthetic performance and dark respiration. Moreover, compared to control treatment, the genotype BRS1010 displayed a large accumulation of sugars, amino acid, proteins and organic acids in leaves under Al stress. Therefore, the leaf physiology and metabolism are pivotal players in modulating Al tolerance in maize.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Nucleus of Microscopy and Microanalysis (NMM -http://www.nmm.ufv.br/), at Federal University of Viçosa for providing us with the equipment for experiments involving electron microscopy. We acknowledge the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (Process 423109/2018-9) for funding this project. We thank Daniel Coelho for help with the figures.
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40626_2020_175_MOESM1_ESM.tif
Supplementary Figure S1. Morphological changes in root tips under Al stress. Plants were grown in control (0 μM Al, -Al) or Al stressful condition (100 μM Al, +Al) for 3, 4 and 5 days. Roots were observed at Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) (magnification 100 X). Arrows represent Al-induced damage to the external root surface (transverse ruptures). Supplementary file1 (TIF 1738 kb)
40626_2020_175_MOESM2_ESM.tif
Supplementary Figure S2. Nutrition evaluation in root of BRS1010 and BRS1055 maize genotypes under Al treatment. Plants were grown in control (0 μM Al, -Al) or Al stressful condition (100 μM Al, +Al) for 3, 4 and 5 days. Concentration of calcium (A), potassium (B), magnesium (C) and phosphorous (D). Values are means ± SE of 5 replicates, asterisks (٭) are associated with differences in the same genotype with absence (-Al) or presence(+Al) of Al according with t-student test in a 95% of confidence interval. Supplementary file2 (TIF 175 kb)
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Siqueira, J.A., Barros, J.A.S., Dal-Bianco, M. et al. Metabolic and physiological adjustments of maize leaves in response to aluminum stress. Theor. Exp. Plant Physiol. 32, 133–145 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40626-020-00175-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40626-020-00175-w