Physiological and Biochemical Responses of four cassava cultivars to drought stress

The antioxidant mechanism is crucial for resisting oxidative damage induced by drought stress in plants. Different antioxidant mechanisms may contribute to the tolerance of cassava to drought stress, but for a specific genotype, the response is still unknown. The objective of this study was to investigate antioxidant response and physiological changes of four cassava genotypes under water stress conditions, by keeping the soil moisture content as 80% (control), 50% (medium), 20% (severe) of field capacity for a week. Genotypes RS01 and SC124 were keeping higher relative water content (RWC) and relative chlorophyll content (SPAD value) and less affected by oxidative stress than SC205 and GR4 under drought stress. RS01 just showed slight membrane damage and oxidative stress even under severe drought conditions. A principal component analysis showed that cassava plant water status was closely related to the antioxidant mechanism. Antioxidant response in genotypes RS01 and SC124 under drought stress might attribute to the increased accumulation of ascorbate (AsA) and glutathione (GSH) content and higher superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities, which explained by the up-regulation of Mn-SOD and CAT genes. However, Genotypes SC205 and GR4 mainly depended on the accumulation of total phenolics (TP) and increased glutathione reductase (GR) activity, which attribute to the up-regulation of the GR gene. Our findings could provide vital knowledge for refining the tactics of cultivation and molecular breeding with drought avoidance in cassava.