Activity and gene expression analysis of antioxidant enzymes in juglone applied cucumber

In this thesis study, Juglone was applied to cucumber plant seeds at different concentrations. The influence of the juglone on germination on these seeds, the effect on the activity of antioxidant enzymes and the effect of expression in the gene region encoding these enzymes have been examined. In seeds exposed to juglone, the activation of SOD, CAT and APX enzymes was increased at different rates, usually to a concentration of 0.25 mM; there was a decrease in the concentration of 0.5 mM for all enzymes. We observed increase in expression of CAT enzyme at 0.1 mM concentration relative to control; and for the SOD gene expression we observed increase at the leaves and decrease at the roots. For the gene expression of APX enzyme, an increase was observed at the concentration of 0.1 mM in the root and 0.5 mM in the leaf. In the correlation tests made: we detected positive corelation between root length with APX gene expression in the roots, stem length with leaf SOD activity, root length with CAT gene expression in the leaf, stem length with leaf SOD gene expression, leaf APX activity with root and leaf CAT gene expression. There was negative correlation between root length and leaf SOD gene expression, root SOD gene expression and root CAT activity and leaf SOD enzyme activity. It can be interpreted that the results of this study may be useful in future studies on reducing the damage that allelochemicals may cause in agricultural products.