Impact Assessment of Mercury Accumulation and Biochemical and Molecular Response of Mentha arvensis: A Potential Hyperaccumulator Plant

Table 2

Effects of mercury heavy metal induced stress on chlorophyll a, b and carotenoid contents in leaves of M. arvensis seedlings along with untreated control.

Hg Concen. (mg/L)	Photosynthetic pigments (mg/g fw)
	Chl a content	Chl b content	Total Chl content	Car content
0.00	1.574 ± 0.001^a	0.584 ± 0.009^a	2.158 ± 0.010^a
5.0	1.561 ± 0.001^a	0.571 ± 0.014^a	2.132 ± 0.015^a	0.537 ± 0.001^a
10.0	1.530 ± 0.006^a	0.530 ± 0.008^a	2.060 ± 0.014^b	0.536 ± 0.001^a
15.0	1.431 ± 0.135^b	0.462 ± 0.074^b	1.893 ± 0.209^c	0.436 ± 0.002^b
20.0	1.195 ± 0.008^c	0.456 ± 0.009^b	1.651 ± 0.017^d	0.438 ± 0.002^b
25.0	1.112 ± 0.018^d	0.442 ± 0.011^b	1.554 ± 0.029^e	0.426 ± 0.004^b

Data are means SE (); columns with different letters indicate significant differences at ≤ 0.05.