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Special Issue "Heavy Metal Damage and Tolerance in Plants"

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A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Response to Abiotic Stress and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2023 | Viewed by 3130

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xiong Li

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Guest Editor

Yunnan Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Department of Economic Plants and Biotechnology, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
Interests: abiotic stress; soil pollution; heavy metal; genetic engineering; proteomics; detoxification; phytoremediation; biofortification

Dr. Renying Zhuo

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Guest Editor

State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Key Laboratory of Tree Breeding of Zhejiang Province, Research Institute of Subtropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Hangzhou 311400, China
Interests: heavy metal; abiotic stress; soil pollution; tree abiotic molecular and physiology; bamboo molecular breeding

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Heavy metals are global environmental pollutants. Most plants have a small tolerance range to heavy metals, and exposure to excessive heavy metals may damage various aspects of plants. However, some plants have evolved super tolerance to heavy metals. The understanding of the multilevel mechanisms underlying plant responses to heavy metal stresses is important for improving plant vitality and quality in heavy-metal-contaminated areas, as well as for the phytoremediation of contaminated environments.

As Guest Editors of the “Heavy Metal Damage and Tolerance in Plants” Special Issue of Plants, we would like to invite you to contribute a paper covering the mechanisms of plant responses to heavy metals at the ecological, morphological, physiological, biochemical, molecular, or genetic levels. In particular, studies uncovering original mechanisms of plant responses to heavy metals on the basis of frontier biotechnology or novel perspectives would be highly appreciated.

Dr. Xiong Li
Dr. Renying Zhuo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

phytotoxicology
oxidative stress
detoxification
ion transport
omics
hyperaccumulator
phytoremediation

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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Open AccessArticle

Elevated CO₂ Suppresses the Vanadium Stress in Wheat Plants under the Future Climate CO₂

Emad A. Alsherif

and

Hamada AbdElgawad

Plants 2023, 12(7), 1535; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071535 - 02 Apr 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 571

Abstract

Increases in atmospheric CO₂ is known to promote plant growth under heavy metals stress conditions. However, vanadium (V) stress mitigating the impact of eCO₂ as well as the physiological and biochemical bases of this stress mitigation have not been well studied. To this end, this study investigated the growth, photosynthetic parameters, oxidative damages antioxidants, and antioxidants enzymes in wheat plants grown under ambient (420 PPM) and high eCO₂ (720 ppm) levels. Exposing wheat plants to higher V increased its accumulation in plants which consequentially inhibited plant growth and induced oxidative damage. An increase in antioxidant and detoxification defense systems was observed but it was not enough to reduce V stress toxicity. On the other hand, wheat growth was improved as a result of reduced V uptake and toxicity on photosynthesis under eCO₂. To reduce V uptake, wheat accumulated citric acid, and oxalic acid in soil preferentially under both treatments but to more extend under V and eCO₂. Additionally, improved photosynthesis induced high carbon availability that was directed to produce chelating proteins (metallothioneins, phytochelatin) and antioxidants (phenolics, flavonoids, total antioxidant capacity). This study advances our knowledge of the processes behind the variations in the physiological and biochemical responses of the wheat crop under V and eCO₂ conditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heavy Metal Damage and Tolerance in Plants)

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Open AccessArticle

Understanding the Active Mechanisms of Plant (Sesuvium portulacastrum L.) against Heavy Metal Toxicity

Emad A. Alsherif

Mohammad Yaghoubi Khanghahi

Carmine Crecchio

Shereen Magdy Korany

Renato Lustosa Sobrinho

and

Hamada AbdElgawad

Plants 2023, 12(3), 676; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12030676 - 03 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 930

Abstract

Through metabolic analysis, the present research seeks to reveal the defense mechanisms activated by a heavy metals-resistant plant, Sesuvium portulacastrum L. In this regard, shifting metabolisms in this plant were investigated in different heavy metals-contaminated experimental sites, which were 50, 100, 500, 1000, and 5000 m away from a man-fabricated sewage dumping lake, with a wide range of pollutant concentrations. Heavy metals contaminations in contaminated soil and their impact on mineral composition and microbial population were also investigated. The significant findings to emerge from this research were the modifications of nitrogen and carbon metabolisms in plant tissues to cope with heavy metal toxicity. Increased plant amylase enzymes activity in contaminated soils increased starch degradation to soluble sugars as a mechanism to mitigate stress impact. Furthermore, increased activity of sucrose phosphate synthase in contaminated plants led to more accumulation of sucrose. Moreover, no change in the content of sucrose hydrolyzing enzymes (vacuolar invertase and cytosolic invertase) in the contaminated sites can suggest the translocation of sucrose from shoot to root under stress. Similarly, although this study demonstrated a high level of malate in plants exposed to stress, caution must be applied in suggesting a strong link between organic acids and the activation of defense mechanisms in plants, since other key organic acids were not affected by stress. Therefore, activation of other defense mechanisms, especially antioxidant defense molecules including alpha and beta tocopherols, showed a greater role in protecting plants from heavy metals stress. Moreover, the increment in the content of some amino acids (e.g., glycine, alanine, glutamate, arginine, and ornithine) in plants under metal toxicity can be attributed to a high level of stress tolerance. Moreover, strategies in the excitation of the synthesis of the unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and palmitoleic) were involved in enhancing stress tolerance, which was unexpectedly associated with an increase in the accumulation of palmitic and stearic (saturated fatty acids). Taken together, it can be concluded that these multiple mechanisms were involved in the response to stress which may be cooperative and complementary with each other in inducing resistance to the plants. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heavy Metal Damage and Tolerance in Plants)

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Review

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Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Chromium Toxicity in Plants: Signaling, Mitigation, and Future Perspectives

Abhijeet Shankar Kashyap

and

Plants 2023, 12(7), 1502; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071502 - 29 Mar 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1272

Abstract

Plants are very often confronted by different heavy metal (HM) stressors that adversely impair their growth and productivity. Among HMs, chromium (Cr) is one of the most prevalent toxic trace metals found in agricultural soils because of anthropogenic activities, lack of efficient treatment, and unregulated disposal. It has a huge detrimental impact on the physiological, biochemical, and molecular traits of crops, in addition to being carcinogenic to humans. In soil, Cr exists in different forms, including Cr (III) “trivalent” and Cr (VI) “hexavalent”, but the most pervasive and severely hazardous form to the biota is Cr (VI). Despite extensive research on the effects of Cr stress, the exact molecular mechanisms of Cr sensing, uptake, translocation, phytotoxicity, transcript processing, translation, post-translational protein modifications, as well as plant defensive responses are still largely unknown. Even though plants lack a Cr transporter system, it is efficiently accumulated and transported by other essential ion transporters, hence posing a serious challenge to the development of Cr-tolerant cultivars. In this review, we discuss Cr toxicity in plants, signaling perception, and transduction. Further, we highlight various mitigation processes for Cr toxicity in plants, such as microbial, chemical, and nano-based priming. We also discuss the biotechnological advancements in mitigating Cr toxicity in plants using plant and microbiome engineering approaches. Additionally, we also highlight the role of molecular breeding in mitigating Cr toxicity in sustainable agriculture. Finally, some conclusions are drawn along with potential directions for future research in order to better comprehend Cr signaling pathways and its mitigation in sustainable agriculture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Heavy Metal Damage and Tolerance in Plants)

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