Abstract:
Spinach seeds were irradiated with
gamma-rays after that soaked in zinc oxide nanopar-
ticles (ZnO–NPs) at 0.0, 50, 100 and 200 ppm for
twenty-four hours at room temperature. Vegetative
plant growth, photosynthetic pigments, and proline
contents were investigated. Also, anatomical studies
and the polymorphism by the SCoT technique were
conducted. The present results revealed that the ger-
mination percentage was at the maximum values for
the treatment of 100 ppm ZnO–NPs (92%), followed
by 100 ppm ZnO–NPs+60 Gy (90%). The applica-
tion of ZnO–NPs resulted in an enhancement in the
plant length. The maximum of chlorophylls and
carotenoids content was recorded in the treatment,
100 ppm ZnO–NPs+60 Gy. Meanwhile, the irra-
diation dose level (60 Gy) with all ZnO–NPs treat-
ments increased proline content and reached its maxi-
mum increase to 1.069 mg/g FW for the treatment
60 Gy combined with 200 ppm ZnO–NPs. Also, the
anatomical studies declared that there were variations
between the treatments; un-irradiated and irradiated
combined with ZnO–NPs plants which reveal that
the leave epidermal tissue increased with 200 ppm
ZnO–NPs in both the upper and lower epidermis.
While irradiated plants with 60 Gy combined with
100 ppm ZnO–NPs gave more thickness of upper epi-
dermis. As well as SCoT molecular marker technique
efectively induced molecular alterations between the
treatments. Where, SCoT primers targeted many new
and missing amplicons that are expected to be associ-
ated with the lowly and highly expressed genes with
18.2 and 81.8%, respectively. Also, showed that the
soaking in ZnO-NPs was helped for reducing molecu-
lar alteration rate, both spontaneous and induced by
gamma irradiation. This nominates ZnO–NPs as
potential nano-protective agents that can reduce irra-
diation-induced genetic damage.
