Authors : S. M. Jagtap and S. L. Laware
Page Nos : 94-97
Description :
Globally, many countries have identified the potential of nanotechnology in the agriculture sector and are trying to explore it significantly through research and development. With this view the present experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) on hydrolytic and antioxidant enzyme activities during seed germination under laboratory condition. In this investigation, graded concentrations (00, 10, 20, 30, and 40 g mL-1) of ZnO NPs were prepared in distilled water. Surface sterilized onion seeds (25 seed per plate) were germinated with graded concentrations of ZnO NPs in petriplates on Whatman filter paper. Seed germinated without nanoparticles was considered as control. Results showed that ZnO NPs increases the activities of hydrolytic (Amylase and Protease) and antioxidant enzymes (SOD-Superoxidase, CAT-Catalase and POD-Peroxidase) at lower concentration (10-20 µgml-1) while it decelerate the activities in higher concentration (30 and 40 µgml-1). These results also match to the seed germination and early seedlings growth data, where lower concentrations of ZnO NPs showed enhanced seed germination and early seedlings growth and higher concentrations showed adverse effect.
Keywords: ZnO nanoparticles, amylase, protease, SOD, CAT, POD.
