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Ionizing radiation from Chernobyl affects development of wild carrot plants.

ABSTRACT: Radioactivity released from disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima is a global hazard and a threat to exposed biota. To minimize the deleterious effects of stressors organisms adopt various strategies. Plants, for example, may delay germination or stay dormant during stressful periods. However, an intense stress may halt germination or heavily affect various developmental stages and select for life history changes. Here, we test for the consequence of exposure to ionizing radiation on plant development. We conducted a common garden experiment in an uncontaminated greenhouse using 660 seeds originating from 33 wild carrots (Daucus carota) collected near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. These maternal plants had been exposed to radiation levels that varied by three orders of magnitude. We found strong negative effects of elevated radiation on the timing and rates of seed germination. In addition, later stages of development and the timing of emergence of consecutive leaves were delayed by exposure to radiation. We hypothesize that low quality of resources stored in seeds, damaged DNA, or both, delayed development and halted germination of seeds from plants exposed to elevated levels of ionizing radiation. We propose that high levels of spatial heterogeneity in background radiation may hamper adaptive life history responses.

SUBMITTER: Boratynski Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5159907 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ionizing radiation from Chernobyl affects development of wild carrot plants.

Boratyński Zbyszek Z Arias Javi Miranda JM Garcia Cristina C Mappes Tapio T Mousseau Timothy A TA Møller Anders P AP Pajares Antonio Jesús Muñoz AJ Piwczyński Marcin M Tukalenko Eugene E

Scientific reports 20161216

Radioactivity released from disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima is a global hazard and a threat to exposed biota. To minimize the deleterious effects of stressors organisms adopt various strategies. Plants, for example, may delay germination or stay dormant during stressful periods. However, an intense stress may halt germination or heavily affect various developmental stages and select for life history changes. Here, we test for the consequence of exposure to ionizing radiation on plant deve ...[more]

PMID: 27982121

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Project description:BackgroundThe Chernobyl accident represents a long-term experiment on the effects of exposure to ionizing radiation at the ecosystem level. Though studies of these effects on plants and animals are abundant, the study of how Chernobyl radiation levels affect prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial communities is practically non-existent, except for a few reports on human pathogens or soil microorganisms. Environments enduring extreme desiccation and UV radiation, such as sunlight exposed biofilms could in principle select for organisms highly resistant to ionizing radiation as well.Methodology/principal findingsTo test this hypothesis, we explored the diversity of microorganisms belonging to the three domains of life by cultivation-independent approaches in biofilms developing on concrete walls or pillars in the Chernobyl area exposed to different levels of radiation, and we compared them with a similar biofilm from a non-irradiated site in Northern Ireland. Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria and Deinococcales were the most consistently detected bacterial groups, whereas green algae (Chlorophyta) and ascomycete fungi (Ascomycota) dominated within the eukaryotes. Close relatives to the most radio-resistant organisms known, including Rubrobacter species, Deinococcales and melanized ascomycete fungi were always detected. The diversity of bacteria and eukaryotes found in the most highly irradiated samples was comparable to that of less irradiated Chernobyl sites and Northern Ireland. However, the study of mutation frequencies in non-coding ITS regions versus SSU rRNA genes in members of a same actinobacterial operational taxonomic unit (OTU) present in Chernobyl samples and Northern Ireland showed a positive correlation between increased radiation and mutation rates.Conclusions/significanceOur results show that biofilm microbial communities in the most irradiated samples are comparable to non-irradiated samples in terms of general diversity patterns, despite increased mutation levels at the single-OTU level. Therefore, biofilm communities growing in sunlight exposed substrates are capable of coping with increased mutation rates and appear pre-adapted to levels of ionizing radiation in Chernobyl due to their natural adaptation to periodical desiccation and ambient UV radiation.

Project description:Ionizing radiation is a harsh environmental factor that could induce plant aging. We hypothesized that radiation-related aging remodels proteome, particularly triggering the accumulation of prion-like proteins in tissues. The object of this study, pea (Pisum sativum), is an agriculturally important legume. Research on the functional importance of amyloidogenic proteins was never performed on this species. Pea seeds were irradiated by 50 Gy of X-rays. Afterwards, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to investigate changes in the secondary structure of proteins in germinated seedlings. Specifically, we evaluated the ratio between the amide I and II peaks. Next, we performed protein staining with Congo red to compare the presence of amyloids in the samples. In parallel, we profiled detergent-resistant proteome fraction by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS). Differentially accumulated proteins were functionally analyzed in MapMan software, and the PLAAC tool was used to reveal putative prion-like proteins. We showed a reduced germination rate, yet higher plant height and faster appearance of reproductive organs in the irradiated group compared with the control; furthermore, we demonstrated more β-sheets and amyloid aggregates in the leaves of stressed plants. We detected 531 proteins in detergent-resistant fraction extracted from roots, and 62 were annotated as putative prion-like proteins. Notably, 29 proteins were significantly differentially abundant between the irradiated and the control groups. These proteins belong to several functional categories: amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, cytoskeleton organization, regulatory processes, protein biosynthesis, and RNA processing. Thus, discovery proteomics provided deep data on novel aspects of plant stress biology. Our data hinted that protein accumulation stimulated seedlings' growth and affected the regulatory system, primarily through translation and RNA processing. Increased abundance of primary metabolism-related proteins points to more intensive metabolic processes triggered in germinating pea seeds upon X-ray exposure. The functional role of detected putative amyloidogenic proteins should be validated in overexpression or knockout follow-up studies.

Project description:Understanding the effects of ionizing radiation (IR) on plants is important for environmental protection, for agriculture and horticulture, and for space science but plants have significant biological differences to the animals from which much relevant knowledge is derived. The effects of IR on plants are understood best at acute high doses because there have been; (a) controlled experiments in the field using point sources, (b) field studies in the immediate aftermath of nuclear accidents, and (c) controlled laboratory experiments. A compilation of studies of the effects of IR on plants reveals that although there are numerous field studies of the effects of chronic low doses on plants, there are few controlled experiments that used chronic low doses. Using the Bradford-Hill criteria widely used in epidemiological studies we suggest that a new phase of chronic low-level radiation research on plants is desirable if its effects are to be properly elucidated. We emphasize the plant biological contexts that should direct such research. We review previously reported effects from the molecular to community level and, using a plant stress biology context, discuss a variety of acute high- and chronic low-dose data against Derived Consideration Reference Levels (DCRLs) used for environmental protection. We suggest that chronic low-level IR can sometimes have effects at the molecular and cytogenetic level at DCRL dose rates (and perhaps below) but that there are unlikely to be environmentally significant effects at higher levels of biological organization. We conclude that, although current data meets only some of the Bradford-Hill criteria, current DCRLs for plants are very likely to be appropriate at biological scales relevant to environmental protection (and for which they were intended) but that research designed with an appropriate biological context and with more of the Bradford-Hill criteria in mind would strengthen this assertion. We note that the effects of IR have been investigated on only a small proportion of plant species and that research with a wider range of species might improve not only the understanding of the biological effects of radiation but also that of the response of plants to environmental stress.

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Ionizing radiation from Chernobyl affects development of wild carrot plants.

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Ionizing radiation from Chernobyl affects development of wild carrot plants.

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