Interpretation of Chlorophyll and Nucleic Acid Components in Relation to Salt Tolerance in Sugarcane

Abstract

Quantitative changes in the concentrations of photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll and the nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) contents of ten different sugarcanegenotypes viz. CoSe 01424, CoSe 01434, CoSe 03234, CoS 03251, CoS 03261, CoS 07250, CoS 95255, CoSe 96436, CoS 97261 and UP 49, grown under normal (0.4 dsm-1) and saline (8.0 dsm-1) soil conditions were analyzed and compared. RNA content was found increased and chlorophyll as well as DNA contents were found decreased in the plants grown under salt stress conditions as compared to the normal. The purity of nucleic acid was found to be highest at A260/ A280 ratio and lowest at A260/ A230 ratio in almost all the varieties under both conditions. The A260/ A280 ratio showed that the average DNA purity in sugarcanes grown under normal and saline soil conditions remained 1.73 and 1.41 respectively and was found to be decreased by 18.5% under saline conditions. The quantitative changes of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) at 260 and 280 nm wavelengths demonstrated that generally varieties showed presence of superior RNA content and despaired DNA content under saline soil conditions.