Nitric oxide and drought tolerance of sugarcane plants

Abstract

Water shortage is likely to be one of the major global environmental stresses of the21st century. There are recent evidence that support that nitric oxide (NO) play animportant role in the defense mechanisms of plants under environmental stress,including drought. However, the relation between drought tolerance of plants and NOmetabolism is still unclear. As NO is a molecule related to environmental stresses, wehypothesize that NO accumulate in sugarcane plants under water deficit, with suchresponse being associated with the degree of drought-tolerance of different genotypes.The aim of the present study is to investigate the NO metabolism by analyzing thesynthesis and degradation of NO in two sugarcane genotypes with differential toleranceto water deficit. Water deficit will be induced in plants growing in nutrient solution byadding PEG-8000. This treatment will reduce the osmotic potential of nutrient solution to-0.75 MPa. The activities of nitric oxide synthase (NOS), nitrate reductase (NR), Snitrosoglutathionereductase (GSNOR) will be analyze and the production the NO will bedetect by fluorescence microscopy technique. (AU)