Oxidative stress and non-enzymatic antioxidants in leaves of three edible canna cultivars under drought stress

The physiological responses of three edible canna cultivars (Canna edulis ker. cv. ‘PLRF’, ‘Xingyu-1’, and ‘Xingyu-2’) to continuous drought stress for 35 days were investigated by characterizing the water saturation deficit (WSD), relative electrical conductivity (REC), superoxidative radical content (SRC), ascorbic acid (AsA) content, glutathione (GSH) content and protein content. It was observed that WSD, REC, SRC progressively increased in the upper leaves of three cultivars under both control and drought treatments. The content changes of AsA, GSH and water soluble protein were lower in ‘Xingyu-2’ than in ‘Xingyu-1’ and ‘PLRF’, in upper leaves than in lower leaves. Compared with control, drought stress aggravated these physiological changes in all three cultivars. The correlation analysis showed that there were significant correlations between indexes except for protein content, which significantly correlated only with SRC. These indicated that drought stress directly led to water loss, and then the REC increased, while the GSH and AsA played major roles in removing the SRC. These results revealed that ‘Xingyu-2’ was more tolerant to drought stress than ‘PLRF’ and ‘Xingyu-1’ and the lower leaves were more sensitive than the upper leaves. The present study not only provides new insights into mechanisms of acclimation and tolerance to drought stress in edible canna but also provides clues for improving drought tolerance of edible canna through breeding or genetic engineering.