Effect of gibberellic acid on growth, biomass, and antioxidant defense system of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under cerium oxide nanoparticle stress.

Recently nanoparticles (NPs) are ubiquitous in the environment because they have unique characteristics which are the reason of their wide use in various fields. The release of NPs into various environmental compartments mainly ends up in the soil through water bodies which is a serious threat to living things especially plants. When present in soil, NPs may cause toxicity in plants which increase significance to minimize NPs stress in plants. Although gibberellic acid (GA) is one of the phytohormones that has the potential to alleviate abiotic/biotic stresses in crops plant, GA-mediated alleviation of cerium oxide (CeO) NPs in plants is still unknown, despite the large-scale application of CeO-NPs in various fields. The present study was performed to highlight the ability of foliar-applied GA in reducing CeO-NPs toxicity in wheat under soil exposure of CeO-NPs. We observed that CeO-NPs alone adversely affected the dry weights, chlorophyll contents, and nutrients and caused oxidative stress in plants, thereby reducing plant yield. GA coupled with CeO-NPs reversed the changes caused by CeO-NPs alone as indicated by the increase in plant growth, chlorophylls, nutrients, and yield. Furthermore, GA alleviated the oxidative stress in plants by enhancing antioxidant enzyme activities under CeO-NPs exposure than the NPs alone which further provided the evidence of reduction in oxidative damage in plants by GA. Overall, evaluating the potential of GA in reducing CeO-NPs toxicity in wheat could provide important information for improving food safety under CeO-NPs exposure.