HMs Induced Changes on Growth, Antioxidant Enzyme’s Activity, gas Exchange Parameters and Protein Structures in Sasa Kongosanensis f. Aureo – Striatus

Abstract

Nowadays, the contaminations generated by anthropogenic activities have had damaging effects on the life cycle of plants, particularly on the plants living in the vicinity of urban areas that are more associated with the life of people. Bamboo, as a local plant, is one of the most widely used plants in China. So, a pot experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of three HMs (Cu, Pb, and Zn) in four different concentrations (0 (for control), 500 mg/kg, 1000 mg/kg, and 200 mg/kg), with complete randomized design (CRD) by five replications for each treatment to measure the antioxidant enzymes, lipid per oxidation (LP), soluble protein (SP), gas exchange parameters, and morphological indexes in Sasa kongosanensis f. aureostriatus. The results indicated that the antioxidant responses had an arc-shaped trend with various alterations in which POD and CAT first increase with low concentration of HMs (500 mg/kg) and then decrease with the increase of heavy metal (1000 mg/kg and 2000 mg/kg). Additionally, measuring of MDA content and soluble protein illustrated that MDA content and soluble protein increase with excess of HMs in different levels, and also the excess of HMs significantly decreases the photosynthesis properties. Moreover, the results obtained by morphological indices showed that low concentration of HMs increases both percentage of shoot length and percentage of emerge plants at all three kinds of HMs, but observe a downward trend with excess of heavy metal in 1000 mg/kg and 2000 mg/kg. Overall, in "Sasa kongosanensis f. aureo -striatus, results indicated that low concentration of HMs (500 mg/kg) can help the plant growth, while excess of HMs (1000-2000 mg/kg) alleviates the plant growth. On the other hand, Pb revealed the lowest antioxidant