Effect of Some Heavy Metals on Alkaloid Production

Plants are exposed to all kinds of stresses including heavy metals during their life, and among them, bio-remedial plants are very important to purify the environment. These changes can cause short-term or long-term and even permanent effects in plants. Some of these heavy metals are nickel, Lead and cadmium which affect some physiological parameters of plants. Studies have shown that the changes in planting conditions can affect the qualitative and quantitative features of Catharanthus roseus plant; therefore, creating stressful conditions can be an effective way to investigate the changes. In this project, we investigated the effect of different concentrations of Solutions nickel chloride, lead and cadmium separately on the degree of catalase enzyme activity, amount of proline aggregation and photosynthetic parameters on seeds of pink and white variety of this plant. The results showed that the degree of catalase enzyme activity and the amount of proline aggregation increased in plants which were exposed to these metal stresses, especially in high concentrations, while the total protein decreased.