Laser-induced changes in the gene expression, growth and development of Gladiolus grandiflorus cv. “White Prosperity”

Abstract

Corms of Gladiolus grandiflorus cv. “White Prosperity” was irradiated via red laser at wavelength 635 nm. Various morphological, flowering, elemental and chemical characterizations were studied. Irradiation with different power (5, 20, and 50 mW) and various irradiation time (0.0, 0.5, 1, 3, 5 and 10 min) was studied. Several characters), totaletermined include vegetative growth parameter (spouting days, plant height (cm), leaves number, leaves fresh and dry weights (g/plant), diameter of plant middle part (mm) and leaf area (cm2), floral parameters (flowering days, vase life (day), fresh and dry weights of inflorescence (g/plant), number of flowers per inflorescence, inflorescence length(cm), flowers diameter(cm), number of corms per plant, corms fresh weight(g/plant), circumference/ corms), pigments [total chlorophylls in leaves (SPAD), anthocyanin content (mg/100 g F.W.) in petals], NPK (%) in new corms and chemical composition in corms; total carbohydrates (%),total phenol (μg CE/g (%),total flavonoid (μg CE/g) (%), antioxidant (DPPH IC50 (μg /ml (%), and proline content (μ moles/g). The results showed that the medium level (20 mW) of He–Ne laser at 5 min caused favorable changes in the leaf anatomical structures and other studied characters followed by the low level (5 mW) of He–Ne laser at 5min. 112 bands emerged from 22 SSR primers, ranging between 130 and 540 bp, with 32 bands having polymorphism ranging from 17–100%. Out of the 22 SSR primers, 3 primers exhibited a high polymorphism percentage, i.e., SSR6, SSR16 and SSR22 which exhibited 7 positive markers. These findings revealed the efficiency of SSR primers for differentiating gladiolus plants and revealed that some alleles were affected by laser in their corms and the expression resulted in color or abnormalities in leaves and/or flowers. Mutation in some alleles could result in abnormalities like mutation in the allele with 410 bp revealed by SSR16.