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Review
. 2022 Aug 22;11(16):2181.
doi: 10.3390/plants11162181.

The Modulatory Effects of Non-Thermal Plasma on Seed's Morphology, Germination and Genetics-A Review

Livia-Ioana Leti  1   2 , Ioana Cristina Gerber  3 , Ilarion Mihaila  3 , Paula-Maria Galan  1   2 , Silvia Strajeru  1 , Denisa-Elena Petrescu  1 , Mirela-Mihaela Cimpeanu  2 , Ionut Topala  2 , Dragos-Lucian Gorgan  2
Affiliations
Review

The Modulatory Effects of Non-Thermal Plasma on Seed's Morphology, Germination and Genetics-A Review

Livia-Ioana Leti et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Non-thermal plasma (NTP) is a novel and promising technique in the agricultural field that has the potential to improve vegetal material by modulating the expression of various genes involved in seed germination, plant immune response to abiotic stress, resistance to pathogens, and growth. Seeds are most frequently treated, in order to improve their ability to growth and evolve, but the whole plant can also be treated for a fast adaptive response to stress factors (heat, cold, pathogens). This review focuses mainly on the application of NTP on seeds. Non-thermal plasma treated seeds present both external and internal changes. The external ones include the alterations of seed coat to improve hydrophilicity and the internal ones refer to interfere with cellular processes that are later visible in metabolic and plant biology modifications. The usage of plasma aims to decrease the usage of fertilizers and pesticides in order to reduce the negative impact on natural ecosystem and to reduce the costs of production.

Keywords: gene expression; germination; non-thermal plasma; plasma treated water; seeds.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cold plasma treatment on seeds influences decontamination, germination and growth processes, modulation of gene expression, seed coat’s etching and the decrease of contact angle.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The number of published scientific articles about the cold plasma effects on seeds during 2011–2021 in PubMed.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The frequency of the analyzed parameters in 50 scientific articles about cold plasma effects on seeds.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Contact angle measurement.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Direct (left) versus indirect (right) treatment of seeds using cold plasma.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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