Research Article Open Access Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000271 J Environ Anal Toxicol ISSN: 2161-0525 JEAT, an open access journal Open Access Research Article Akbulut et al., J Environ Anal Toxicol 2015, 5:3 DOI: 10.4172/2161-0525.1000271 *Corresponding author: Emel Yıgıt, Inonu University, Science and Art Faculty, Department of Biology, 44280, Malatya/Turkey, Tel: +90 422 3773763; Fax: +90 422 3410037; E-mail: emel-yigit@windowslive.com Received December 23, 2014; Accepted January 01, 2015; Published January 31, 2015 Citation: Akbulut GB, Yigit E, Bayram D (2015) Investigation of the Effects of Salicylic Acid on Some Biochemical Parameters in Zea mays to Glyphosate Herbicide. J Environ Anal Toxicol 5: 271. doi:10.4172/2161-0525.1000271 Copyright: © 2015 Akbulut GB, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Investigation of the Effects of Salicylic Acid on Some Biochemical Parameters in Zea mays to Glyphosate Herbicide Gulcin Beker Akbulut 1 , Emel Yigit 2* and Dilek Bayram 2 1 Department of Organic Agriculture, Tunceli Vocational School, Tunceli University, Tunceli/Turkey 2 Department of Biology, Science and Art Faculty, Inonu University, 44280, Malatya/Turkey Keywords: Glyphosate; Salicylic acid; Antioxidant; Lipid peroxidation; Total chlorophyll; Total soluble carbohydrate Introduction Zea mays L. is the most important cereal crop in the World aſter wheat and rice. While in western countries maize production is highly mechanized, in many other -mainly developing countries - the crop is still grown by smallholders and medium-scale farmers, using traditional and low-input cultivation techniques. Yields under those circumstances are much lower. Besides, maize is an important staple food in developing countries, and a basic ingredient for local drinks and food products. It is also and outstanding feed for livestock, high in energy, low in fiber and easily digestible. As a source of starch, it is major ingredient in industrialized food products [1]. Pesticides are the chemical species that cause death and avoid or reduce growth of plants or animals that are considered as pests. Herbicides are a class of pesticides that are used to kill weeds and other undesirable life forms in agricultural crops [2-4]. Glyphosate is the most extensively used herbicide in the agriculture. Weed management programs in glyphosate resistant field crops have provided highly effective weed control, simplified management decisions, and given cleaner harvested products. However, this systemic herbicide can have extensive unintended effects on nutrient efficiency and disease severity, thereby threatening its agricultural sustainability [5]. Glyphosate acts as a non-selective total herbicide by inhibiting the shikimate pathway responsible for the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids and phenolic compounds [6], thereby causing impairment of general metabolic processes, such as protein synthesis and photosynthesis [7-9]. When plants are sprayed in crop fields and sub lethal doses of herbicides reach non-target plant species in adjacent habitats through driſt, runoff and/or volatilization, resultant effects on sensitive species can be observed in any of four ways: a) Plants at the seedling stage during spray will have their vegetative parts affected, b) the same plants could express the effect through negative impacts on seed production at later stages, c) plants at the reproductive phase during spray have their seed production impacted or d) the vegetative parts of the F1 generation are affected. erefore, it appears that seedlings and plant species at late vegetative and reproductive stages may be affected differently, and this is most likely influenced in turn by the type of herbicide applied [10]. SA is a common plant-produced phenolic compound and a potential endogenous plant hormone that plays an important role in plant growth and development [11,12]. e role of SA is intensively studied in plant responses to biotic stress. In recent years, the involvement of SA in the response to abiotic stresses has come into light [13]. It has been suggested that SA has great agronomic potential to improve the stress tolerance of agriculturally important crops [14,15]. Besides providing disease resistance to the plants, SA could regulate the activities of antioxidant enzymes and increase plant tolerance to abiotic stresses [16,17]. Recent evidence also suggests that SA is an important regulator of photosynthesis because it affects leaf and chloroplast structure [18,19]. In indirect stress perception ROS are components frequently used as signalling molecules. However, ROS themselves can be subject to direct or indirect perception mechanisms [20]. Under normal growth conditions, ROS are inevitably generated in cellular compartments during oxygen metabolism, but antioxidative systems control the level of ROS. Efficient defense system enzymatic antioxidant: POD, APX, SOD, CAT, GR and GST and also non-enzymatic antioxidants: ascorbate, GSH etc. may regulate ROS level directly or indirectly and thus, the antioxidants are an indicative of level of tolerance in plants [21]. In stress condition, the balance between the productions of ROS and antioxidants get disturbed and thus, level of ROS is enhanced to an extent that causes severe damage to the biomolecules [22,23]. ROS directly react with biomolecules cause lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation and DNA mutation [24,25]. is work was to show the changes of the antioxidant system in response to glyphosate herbicide and the effect of SA pretreatment on maize. e antioxidant status was investigated through analyzing changes in POD, APX, SOD, CAT, GSH, GR, GST changes and Abstract In this study, investigated the possible mediatory role of salicylic acid (SA) in protecting Zea mays L. “Martha F1” seedlings from glyphosate toxicity. 0.5 mM SA was treated as preemergence and 17-145 mM glyphosate herbicide was treated postemergence to same groups. The effects upon Peroxidase (POD), Ascorbate Peroxidase (APX), Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT) reduced glutathione (GSH), Glutathione Reductase (GR), Glutathione S Transferase (GST), lipid peroxidation, total chlorophyll and total soluble carbohydrate content of this herbicide were investigated on the 1st, 5th and 10th days following the treatment. Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology J o u r n a l o f E n v i r o n m e n t a l & A n a l y t i c a l T o x i c o l o g y ISSN: 2161-0525