Abstract
Currently‚20 years after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, contamination is still a major problem in Chernobyl and the surrounding areas originally included in the exclusion zone.
Cs137 and Sr90 are the most important radionuclides from Chernobyl catastrophic explosion. Both of these radionuclides pose a potential threat to plant life in the region.
In order to explain this to the general public in a manner as simple as possible specialized knowledge is necessary. This is the aim behind the present study. By adopting the imaging plate technique, we hope to explain in simple, strictly visual terms, the presence of radioactivity in our surroundings‚ e. g. in⁄on plants.
The effect of the radionuclide and importantly, how the radiation released therein affects plant has not been investigated in detail. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that leaves of two-week-old rice seedlings would respond to radiation ‹from the contaminated soil from Masany, Belarus, with major radionuclides, Cs137 and Sr90› by inducing various biochemical⁄molecular changes associated with the defense⁄stress response, including those involving mechanisms affecting the inactivation of damaging reactive oxygen species. Our findings raise important questions on the ‹till now unknown› deleterious effects of low-level radiation in plants, and the need for further investigation into radiation-induced changes in plant cell at the level of the gene, protein, and metabolite.
