Adaptation strategy of barley plants to UV-B radiation

Elevated levels of UV-radiation can change dramatically different aspects of plant growth and development that reflects in a wide variety of morphological and physiological responses. In the present research the influence of heat pretreatment and UV-B pre-exposure on barley plant resistance to ultraviolet radiation as well as the effects of UV-B irradiation on plant vegetative and reproductive organs of two barley cultivars were analyzed. The increasing of UV-resistance of barley plants was observed in terms of seedling viability, stability of statolitic starch in embryo roots, leaf tissue structure and pollen fertility. Molecular genetic analysis using ISSR-markers showed the increasing of polymorphic level up to 80% in somatic tissue, while the decreasing of this parameter to 33% was detected in reproductive tissue under the giving conditions. Results obtained in our research suggest that UV-irradiation can cause genomic instability of barley plants and pre-treatments used in our experiment may lead to plant acclimation and adaptation to UV-B radiation.