Response of hormone in rice seedlings to irrigation contaminated with cyanobacterial extract containing microcystins

Microcystins released by cyanobacteria affect crop growth and productivity, and even food safety. Plant hormones play a vital role in regulating growth, development and stress response in plants. Therefore, we studied the response of hormones including abscisic acid (ABA), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), Zeatin (ZT) and gibberellin (GA3) as well as hormone balances (IAA/ABA, ZT/ABA and GA/ABA) to cyanobacterial extract containing microcystins (1, 10, 100 and 1000 μg/L) during stress and recovery periods. Low concentration microcystins (1 μg/L) promoted growth of rice seedlings by increasing levels of IAA, ZT and GA3 and maintaining hormone balances. In addition, the up-regulation of OsYUCCA1 increased IAA level in rice roots by promoting IAA biosynthesis. High concentrations microcystins (10, 100 or1000 μg/L) inhibited growth of rice seedlings by reducing levels of IAA, ZT and GA3 and ratios of IAA/ABA, ZT/ABA and GA/ABA due to increased ABA level. The increase in ABA in rice seedlings induced by high concentrations MCs was resulted from up-regulation of OsNCED1, OsNCED3, OsNCED4 and OsZEP to enhance ABA biosynthesis, and was controlled by up-regulating expression levels of OsABAox1-3 for enhancing ABA catabolism as negative feedback. The highest concentration of MCs (1000 μg/L) caused irreversible damage to metabolisms of IAA and ABA, partly resulting in unrecoverable inhibition on rice growth. All results demonstrate that "low-concentration promotion and high-concentration inhibition" of microcystins was associated with changes in hormone levels and balances by affecting their metabolisms, and could be helpful for guiding agricultural irrigation with microcystin contaminated water.