Biochemical defense responses of tolerant and susceptible lettuce accessions following infection by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

Abstract

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum is one of the most destructive lettuce diseases, restricting lettuce cultivation globally. Here, we measured the activity of three antioxidant enzymes in two contrastingly responding lettuce accessions (susceptible ML1 and tolerant Jah accessions) challenged by S. sclerotiorum. These enzymes included superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and catalase (CAT). Moreover, we applied the 2,2-diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method and the malondialdehyde (MDA) assay. The activities of SOD and GPx were much pronounced in the tolerant accession than in the susceptible one. Our results indicate that MDA concentration increased significantly in the leaves of tolerant accession compared with that of the susceptible one at 1 dpi whereas MDA level was pronounced in the later time points in the susceptible accession compared with tolerant accession. Taken together, we observed that the examined biochemical markers differentially fluctuated in the applied accessions, shedding light to understand better resistance mechanisms involved in restricting this notorious fungal pathogen.

Keywords:

• Biochemical markers
• Lipid peroxidation
• Lettuce and Sclerotinia sclerotiorum

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest for the submitted manuscript, and this research does not involve Human Participants and/or Animal. In addition, all author agreed about this submitting.

Additional information

Funding

We thank the University of Tehran to financially support the current study and providing the required facilities.