Testing the soil mutagen pollution of Orel's plant district using Arabidopsis thaliana

The mutagenicity of ten soil samples, collected in a different places of the Orel’s Plant district was analyzed. The soil was sampled from the top 10 cm layer. The test plants of Arabidopsis thaliana were grown on the soil samples. The frequencies of formation in the pods of sterile ovules, embryonic dominant lethal (sicca, brevis, vana, diffusa, murca, parva, fusca) and recessive chlorophyll lethal (albina, chlorina, xantha) mutations were analyzed in the grown plants. Individual frequencies of mutations of each class of dominant lethal and recessive lethal mutations in the plants, grown on the studied soil samples, did not have statistically significant differences from the control values. At the same time, a comparison of the total frequencies of lethal mutations with the total frequencies of control plants showed the following results: 1) the frequencies of chlorophyll recessive lethal mutations did not differ from the control value in all 10 variants; 2) the total frequencies of dominant lethals in plants, grown on two soil samples, were statistically significantly higher (P≤0.05) than the control values. The frequencies of sterile ovules were higher than the control values in plants, grown on 3 soil samples. The total frequencies of all anomalies (i.e., sterile ovules + dominant lethals + chlorophyll recessive lethals) in 7 experimental variants statistically significantly (P≤0.01 and P≤0.001) differed from the control frequencies. It is concluded that there are soil plots in the Orel’s Plant district containing chemical substances that are toxic and mutagenic for plants.