Do Oxytetracycline and Ciprofloxacin Affect Growth Phenotype, Leaf Photosynthetic Enzyme Activity, Nitrogen Metabolism, and Endogenous Hormone Homeostasis in Maize Seedlings?

作者：Mingquan Wang, Yong Wang, Guoliang Li, Guanghui Hu, Lixin Fu, Shaoxin Hu, Jianfei Yang, Zhiguo Wang · 发表于：Plants · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3390/plants14193021 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts、Antibiotics Pharmacokinetics and Efficacy、Pesticide and Herbicide Environmental Studies

The wide use of antibiotics in multiple fields leads to their entry into the environment, challenging agriculture and ecology and potentially affecting maize seedling growth. In this study, maize variety Longken 10 was chosen as the experimental material. Subsequently, two antibiotics commonly utilized in production, namely oxytetracycline (OTC) belonging to the tetracycline class and ciprofloxacin (CIP) from the quinolone class, were selected. To comprehensively examine the impacts of these antibiotics on the phenotype, photosynthetic enzymes, nitrogen metabolism, and endogenous hormone contents of maize seedlings, a series of different concentration gradients (0, 3, 5, 30, 60, and 120 mg·L−1) were established, and the nutrient solution hydroponic method was employed. The results showed that, compared with the control group (CK), the activities of all indicators of maize seedlings were the strongest and the seedling growth was the most vigorous when the concentration of CIP was 5 mg·L−1 and that of OTC was 3 mg·L−1. The inhibitory effect of OTC on various indicators of maize seedlings was stronger than that of CIP. The underground parts of maize seedlings were more sensitive to OTC and CIP than the aboveground parts. Overall, maize seedlings exhibited a trend where high concentrations (30–120 mg·L−1) of antibiotics inhibited growth, while low concentrations (3–5 mg·L−1) promoted growth. The treatment groups with 3–5 mg·L−1 of OTC and CIP increased maize seedling growth pheno...