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Phytoremediation and Plant Morphophysiology in Contaminated Areas

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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: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 12382

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Magdalena Krzesłowska

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Guest Editor

Laboratory of General Botany, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University , Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 6, 61- 614 Poznan, Poland
Interests: plant cell; plant cell wall; endomembrane system; plant anatomy; trace elements, focused on up-take by plant, transport, accumulation, effects and defense strategies—particularly at cellular and anatomical levels of plant organization; phytoremediation; transgenic plants for phytoremedia-tion; bioimaging
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Miroslaw Mleczek

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Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Science, Poznan University of Life Sciences, 60-625 Poznan, Poland
Interests: migration of trace elements in post-industrial wastes; phytoextraction of metals/metalloids by tree species and short rotation coppice; interactions between elements or selected forms of the same element; biofortification of cultivated mushroom species with Li and Ge salts; long-term research of wild-growing mushroom species
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Phytoremediation, the use of plants and their associated microbes for environmental clean-up, has gained acceptance as a cost-effective, eco-sustainable, alternative or complementary technol-ogy for engineering-based remediation methods. Phytoremediation is used for cleaning envi-ronments from, e.g., toxic trace elements and/or radionuclides or organic pollutants. However, scientists in many laboratories all over the world still test plants to find more and more efficient species in the prospect of using them in this green technology. The research also includes genetic transformations of plants and/or inoculation of plants with, e.g., resistant microorganisms.
Plants which are growing on contaminated areas use special strategies which enable them to avoid or tolerate stress. However, if the dose of stress factor is too strong, plants also show the symptoms of malformations which can lead even to plant death.
At the beginning, both symptoms of defence strategies as well as disturbance symptoms occur at the molecular level. Subsequently, the signs of both plant resistance/adaptation to stress as well as its sensitivity are visible at the cellular, tissue and organ level. These symptoms can be used as markers of particular plant resistance or sensitivity for a given pollutant.
Therefore, in this Special Issue, which concerns the phytoremediation and morphophysiology of plants growing on contaminated substrate/medium, we welcome the articles (original research papers, perspectives, hypotheses, opinions, reviews, modelling approaches and methods) that focus on symptoms of both adaptation and resistance strategies, as well as distortion effects in plants. The articles can concern:

The symptoms mentioned above at different levels of organization: (1) cellular level in-cluding molecular, physiological, genetic and structural traits, (2) alterations in plant anatomy and architecture of plant organs (vegetative and generative), and (3) alterations concerning the whole plants;
Wild and modified plants, e.g., transgenic plants or plants inoculated by different kinds of microorganisms, in prospect of using them in phytoremediation as well as plants already used in this green technology;
Land and water plants growing on contaminated substrate;
Different types of contaminants, e.g., toxic trace elements and/or radionuclides, organic compounds and the ability of plants to their uptake, accumulation, transport to above ground parts of plants and/or plant ability to organic pollutants decomposition to nontoxic inorganic compounds, e.g., water and carbon dioxide.

Prof. Dr. Magdalena Krzesłowska
Prof. Dr. Miroslaw Mleczek
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 2700 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

trace elements
organic pollutant
plant anatomy
plant cell
oxidative stress
hypersensitive reaction
resistance
tolerance
sensitivity

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 13172 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Alterations in the Anatomy and Ultrastructure of Leaf Blade in Norway Maple (Acer platanoides L.) Growing on Mining Sludge: Prospects of Using This Tree Species for Phytoremediation

by Magdalena Krzesłowska, Mirosław Mleczek, Aleksander Luboński, Karolina Weręża, Adam Woźny, Piotr Goliński and Sławomir Samardakiewicz

Plants 2024, 13(10), 1295; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13101295 - 8 May 2024

Viewed by 405

Abstract

Alterations in leaf architecture can be used as an indicator of the substrate toxicity level as well as the potential of a given plant species in the phytoremediation of polluted areas, e.g., mining sludge. In this work, we demonstrated, for the first time, the nature and scale of alterations in leaf architecture at the tissue and cellular levels occurring in Norway maple growing on mining sludge originating from a copper mine in Lubin (Poland). The substrate differs from other mine wastes, e.g., calamine or serpentine soils, due to an extremely high level of arsenic (As). Alterations in leaf anatomy predominantly included the following: (1) a significant increase in upper epidermis thickness; (2) a significant decrease in palisade parenchyma width; (3) more compact leaf tissue organization; (4) the occurrence of two to three cell layers in palisade parenchyma in contrast to one in the control; (5) a significantly smaller size of cells building palisade parenchyma. At the cellular level, the alterations included mainly the occurrence of local cell wall thickenings—predominantly in the upper and lower epidermis—and the symptoms of accelerated leaf senescence. Nevertheless, many chloroplasts showed almost intact chloroplast ultrastructure. Modifications in leaf anatomy could be a symptom of alterations in morphogenesis but may also be related to plant adaptation to water deficit stress. The occurrence of local cell wall thickenings can be considered as a symptom of a defence strategy involved in the enlargement of apoplast volume for toxic elements (TE) sequestration and the alleviation of oxidative stress. Importantly, the ultrastructure of leaf cells was not markedly disturbed. The results suggested that Norway maple may have good phytoremediation potential. However, the general shape of the plant, the significantly smaller size of leaves, and accelerated senescence indicated the high toxicity of the mining sludge used in this experiment. Hence, the phytoremediation of such a substrate, specifically including use of Norway maple, should be preceded by some amendments—which are highly recommended. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytoremediation and Plant Morphophysiology in Contaminated Areas)

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18 pages, 4701 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spraying Zinc Sulfate to Reveal the Mechanism through the Glutathione Metabolic Pathway Regulates the Cadmium Tolerance of Seashore Paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum Swartz)

by Liwen Cui, Yu Chen, Jun Liu, Qiang Zhang, Lei Xu and Zhimin Yang

Plants 2023, 12(10), 1982; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12101982 - 15 May 2023

Viewed by 1089

Abstract

Cadmium (Cd) is considered to be one of the most toxic metals, causing serious harm to plants’ growth and humans’ health. Therefore, it is necessary to study simple, practical, and environmentally friendly methods to reduce its toxicity. Until now, people have applied zinc sulfate to improve the Cd tolerance of plants. However, related studies have mainly focused on physiological and biochemical aspects, with a lack of in-depth molecular mechanism research. In this study, we sprayed high (40 mM) and low (2.5 mM) concentrations of zinc sulfate on seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum Swartz) plants under 0.5 mM Cd stress. Transcriptome sequencing and physiological indicators were used to reveal the mechanism of Cd tolerance. Compared with the control treatment, we found that zinc sulfate decreased the content of Cd²⁺ by 57.03–73.39%, and that the transfer coefficient of Cd decreased by 58.91–75.25% in different parts of plants. In addition, our results indicate that the antioxidant capacity of plants was improved, with marked increases in the glutathione content and the activity levels of glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione S-transferase (GST), and other enzymes. Transcriptome sequencing showed that the differentially expressed genes in both the 0.5 Zn and 40 Zn treatments were mainly genes encoding GST. This study suggests that genes encoding GST in the glutathione pathway may play an important role in regulating the Cd tolerance of seashore paspalum. Furthermore, the present study provides a theoretical reference for the regulation mechanism caused by zinc sulfate spraying to improve plants’ Cd tolerance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytoremediation and Plant Morphophysiology in Contaminated Areas)

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19 pages, 5063 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Accumulation of Plastics and Trace Elements in the Mangrove Forests of Bima City Bay, Indonesia

by Hanna Moniuszko, Win Ariga Mansur Malonga, Piotr Koczoń, Sofie Thijs, Robert Popek and Arkadiusz Przybysz

Plants 2023, 12(3), 462; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12030462 - 19 Jan 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2137

Abstract

Pollution with microplastics (MPs), nanoplastics (NPs) and trace elements (TEs) remains a considerable threat for mangrove biomes due to their capability to capture pollutants suspended in the water. This study investigated the abundance and composition of plastics and TEs contained in the soil and pneumatophores of Avicennia alba sampled in experimental areas (hotel, market, river mouth, port, and rural areas) differentiated in anthropopressure, located in Bima Bay, Indonesia. Polymers were extracted and analyzed with the use of a modified sediment isolation method and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Trace elements were detected by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. The lowest and highest quantities of MPs in soil were recorded in rural and hotel areas, respectively. The rural site was characterized by distinct MP composition. The amounts of sediment-trapped MPs in the tested localities should be considered as high, and the recognized polymers partly corresponded with local human activity. Concentrations of seven plastic types found in plant tissues did not entirely reflect sediment pollution with nine types, suggesting a selective accumulation (particularly of polyamides and vinylidene chloride) and substance migration from other areas. Very low concentrations of non-biogenic TEs were observed, both in sediments and pneumatophores. The results highlight the relevance of environmental contamination with plastics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytoremediation and Plant Morphophysiology in Contaminated Areas)

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Review

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29 pages, 511 KiB

Open AccessReview

Phytoremediation as an Effective Remedy for Removing Trace Elements from Ecosystems

by Agnieszka Mocek-Płóciniak, Justyna Mencel, Wiktor Zakrzewski and Szymon Roszkowski

Plants 2023, 12(8), 1653; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12081653 - 14 Apr 2023

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6196

Abstract

The pollution of soil by trace elements is a global problem. Conventional methods of soil remediation are often inapplicable, so it is necessary to search intensively for innovative and environment-friendly techniques for cleaning up ecosystems, such as phytoremediation. Basic research methods, their strengths and weaknesses, and the effects of microorganisms on metallophytes and plant endophytes resistant to trace elements (TEs) were summarised and described in this manuscript. Prospectively, bio-combined phytoremediation with microorganisms appears to be an ideal, economically viable and environmentally sound solution. The novelty of the work is the description of the potential of “green roofs” to contribute to the capture and accumulation of many metal-bearing and suspended dust and other toxic compounds resulting from anthropopressure. Attention was drawn to the great potential of using phytoremediation on less contaminated soils located along traffic routes and urban parks and green spaces. It also focused on the supportive treatments for phytoremediation using genetic engineering, sorbents, phytohormones, microbiota, microalgae or nanoparticles and highlighted the important role of energy crops in phytoremediation. Perceptions of phytoremediation on different continents are also presented, and new international perspectives are presented. Further development of phytoremediation requires much more funding and increased interdisciplinary research in this direction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytoremediation and Plant Morphophysiology in Contaminated Areas)

21 pages, 1140 KiB

Open AccessReview

Trends in Harnessing Plant Endophytic Microbiome for Heavy Metal Mitigation in Plants: A Perspective

by Pragya Tiwari and Hanhong Bae

Plants 2023, 12(7), 1515; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12071515 - 31 Mar 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1998

Abstract

Plant microbiomes represent dynamic entities, influenced by the environmental stimuli and stresses in the surrounding conditions. Studies have suggested the benefits of commensal microbes in improving the overall fitness of plants, besides beneficial effects on plant adaptability and survival in challenging environmental conditions. The concept of ‘Defense biome’ has been proposed to include the plant-associated microbes that increase in response to plant stress and which need to be further explored for their role in plant fitness. Plant-associated endophytes are the emerging candidates, playing a pivotal role in plant growth, adaptability to challenging environmental conditions, and productivity, as well as showing tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In this article, efforts have been made to discuss and understand the implications of stress-induced changes in plant endophytic microbiome, providing key insights into the effects of heavy metals on plant endophytic dynamics and how these beneficial microbes provide a prospective solution in the tolerance and mitigation of heavy metal in contaminated sites. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Phytoremediation and Plant Morphophysiology in Contaminated Areas)

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