Cadmium and lead- induced genotoxicity in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.)‎ cv. barhee

Abstract EN

Genotoxicity of Cadmium (Cd) and Lead (Pb) heavy metals were investigated in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) whole plant in laboratory under controlled conditions.

The genotoxic effects were evaluated using protein profile and ISSR molecular markers.

Two concentrations of cadmium and lead were selected as 3 and 9 mg/kg for Cd; 100 and 276 mg/ kg for Pb.

The results clearly showed that the Cd at two examined concentrations and Pb at low concentration (100 mg/kg) did not induce any changes in genetic materials in terms of protein patterns and ISSR markers when compared with untreated date palm plants (control plants).

The high concentration of Pb (276 mg/kg) led to appearance of a new protein fragment (18 KDa), as well as, a disappearance of the fragment of 33 KDa which observed in all treatments.

ISSR analysis and Dendrogram revealed the separation of Pb at high concentration in one cluster with the highest genetic distance (0.2 according to Nie and Li's index) than control treatment.

In addition, results indicated that genomic template stability (GTS) was significantly affected by Pb at high concentration and reduced to 70% which reflects the genotoxicity of Pb at 276 mg/kg.

Our results highlight for the first time the genotoxic effects of Pb at high concentration on date palm genome