Department of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry, University of Life Sciences, 8 Skromna St, 20-704, Lublin, Poland.
Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Institute of Plant Protection - National Research Institute, 20 Wegorka St, 60-318, Poznań, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jul 17;13(1):11538. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-38520-z.
To ensure sufficient food supply worldwide, plants are treated with pesticides to provide protection against pathogens and pests. Herbicides are the most commonly utilised pesticides, used to reduce the growth of weeds. However, their long-term use has resulted in the emergence of herbicide-resistant biotypes in many weed species. Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus L., Asteraceae) is one of these plants, whose biotypes resistant to herbicides from the group of acetolactate synthase (ALS) inhibitors have begun to emerge in recent years. Some plants, although undesirable in crops and considered as weeds, are of great importance in phytomedicine and food production, and characterised by a high content of health-promoting substances, including antioxidants. Our study aimed to investigate how the acquisition of herbicide resistance affects the health-promoting properties of plants on the example of cornflower, as well as how they are affected by herbicide treatment. To this end, we analysed non-anthocyanin polyphenols and antioxidant capacity in flowers of C. cyanus from herbicide-resistant and susceptible biotypes. Our results indicated significant compositional changes associated with an increase in the content of substances and activities that have health-promoting properties. High antioxidant activity and higher total phenolic and flavonoid compounds as well as reducing power were observed in resistant biotypes. The latter one increased additionally after herbicide treatment which might also suggest their role in the resistance acquisition mechanism. Overall, these results show that the herbicide resistance development, although unfavourable to crop production, may paradoxically have very positive effects for medicinal plants such as cornflower.
为了确保全球粮食供应充足，人们会使用农药来保护植物免受病原体和害虫的侵害。除草剂是最常用的农药，用于减少杂草的生长。然而，它们的长期使用导致许多杂草物种中出现了抗除草剂的生物型。矢车菊（Centaurea cyanus L.，菊科）就是其中之一，近年来，其对乙酰乳酸合酶（ALS）抑制剂类除草剂产生抗性的生物型开始出现。有些植物虽然在作物中不受欢迎，被视为杂草，但在植物药和食品生产中具有重要意义，其特点是含有大量具有促进健康作用的物质，包括抗氧化剂。我们的研究旨在以矢车菊为例，研究获得除草剂抗性如何影响植物的促进健康特性，以及除草剂处理如何影响这些特性。为此，我们分析了来自抗除草剂和敏感生物型的矢车菊花中非花青素多酚和抗氧化能力。我们的结果表明，与含量增加相关的成分发生了显著变化，这些物质和活动具有促进健康的特性。在抗性生物型中观察到抗氧化活性高，以及总酚类和类黄酮化合物以及还原能力更高。在经过除草剂处理后，后者的含量进一步增加，这也可能表明它们在抗性获得机制中的作用。总的来说，这些结果表明，虽然对作物生产不利，但除草剂抗性的发展可能对像矢车菊这样的药用植物产生非常积极的影响。
