Kaliyugam Shiriga, Rinku Sharma, Krishan Kumar, Shiv Kumar Yadav,Firoz Hossain and NepoleanThirunavukkarasu
Superoxide dismutase (SOD) is one of the major classes of antioxidant enzymes, which protects the cellular and subcellular components against harmful reactive oxygen species. In maize, three types of SODs are present based on their constituent metal ions, namely Cu/Zn-SOD, Mn-SOD and Fe-SOD. We investigated the effect of water stress on SOD isozymes in two contrast maize genotypes, tolerant and susceptible. We found Mn-SOD and Fe-SOD with production of more transcriptomes in the tolerant genotype than susceptible. Cytosolic SOD had heightened expression levels in the tolerant genotype. The expression analyses of cytosolic SOD, Mn-SOD and Fe-SOD would be used as candidate genes for the development of drought tolerant maize.