102

Biology and Biotechnology of Environmental Stress Tolerance in Plants, Volume 3

considerable attention in the recent past. It is based on the principle of

biophysics that shows the effect of oscillating and low-frequency magnetic

fields without heating the biological tissues. Pre-treatment of seeds/seed­

lings with magnetic field is gaining importance in applied agriculture as

magnetic treatment improves the early vigor and initial stages of growth in

plants (Nyakane et al., 2019; Jin et al., 2019). Positive effects on increase in

percentage and rate of germination with improved seedling vigor have been

reported in various crops, e.g., wheat (Tritium aestivum; Rathod & Anand,

2012), barley (Hordeum vulgare; Shabrangy et al., 2021), mungbean (Vigna

radiata; Huang & Wang, 2008), sunflower (Helianthus annuus; Vashisth &

Nagarajan, 2010), rice (Oryza sativa; Florez et al., 2004), chickpea (Cicer

arietinum; Thomas et al., 2010), cucumber (Cucumis sativus; Bhardwaj et

al., 2012), cherry tomato (Gupta et al., 2015), pea (Bhardwaj et al., 2016),

soybean (Glycine max) and maize (Zea mays; Anand et al., 2012; Kataria

et al., 2017a, b, 2019, 2020a, b), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum; Anand

et al., 2019) and onion (Allium cepa; Thakur et al., 2020). The stimulatory

response induced by magneto-priming is sustained till the maturity stage as

manifested by improved plant growth, leaf area, photosynthesis, biomass,

and crop yield (Kataria et al., 2019, 2020b, 2021). The protein patterns on

SDS gel showed that leaves of soybean from static magnetic field (SMF)­

primed seeds had higher band intensities of the large subunit (53 kDa) and

small subunit (14 kDa) of Rubisco (Shine et al., 2012). Transcript abun­

dance of large subunit of Rubisco and carbonic anhydrase (CA) genes were

observed in leaves of soybean plants from SMF-primed seeds (Patel, 2020).

In addition, proteomic analysis of SMF treated seeds of barley (Shabrangy

et al., 2021) revealed that proteins carrying iron in their structure, with metal

ion binding function, and those involved in electron transfer chain decreased

compared to untreated seeds. Oscillation of metal ions by MFA exposure

reduced the proteins with metal ion binding function, while the antioxidant

system was upregulated due to the rise in cellular ROS levels. Total of 41

shoot specific proteins were identified as shoot tissue responded more than

roots. The biological processes that were up regulated by magnetic field

included carbohydrate metabolism, oxidation-reduction reactions and redox

homeostasis (Shabrangy et al., 2021). Hormonal regulation of improved

root growth was observed in studies with varying intensities and direction

of magnetic field. Magnetic field in parallel with gravity vector increased

cell division in the meristematic tissue due to higher auxin content which

was regulated by expression of genes of auxin signaling pathways in the root

tips (Jin et al., 2019). All these studies emphasize that magneto-priming can