Abstract—Salt stress is one of the most serious problems in agriculture and can induce apoptosis in plants. Cell death is induced by two modes: apoptosis and necrosis. We used a TUNEL assay and DNA gel electrophoresis on NaCl-treated cells of rice root to morphologically distinguish the mode of cell death in salt-sensitive and salt-tolerant rice cultivars. The results indicated that 500 mmol/L NaCl treatments could lead to specific features of apoptosis in root tips in both cultivars, such as DNA ladder, nuclear condense and deformation, and transferase mediated dUTP nick end labeling positive reaction, which were initiated at 4h of treatment and progressed thereafter.

Index Terms—Apoptosis, salt stress, rice, TUNEL

Mojtaba Yazdani is with the Department of Biology, Ashtian Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ashtian, Iran (corresponding author, phone: +988627226242; fax: +988627222627; e-mail: yazdani@mail.aiau.ac.ir).
Majid Mahdieh is with the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Arak University, Arak, 38156-8-7349, Iran

Cite: Mojtaba Yazdani and Majid Mahdieh, "Salinity Induced Apoptosis in Root Meristematic Cells of Rice," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 40-43, 2012.