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Plant Responses to Heavy Metals

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Dr. Henk Schat

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Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University and Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Interests: metal tolerance; metal hyperaccumulation; mechanisms; genetics; evolution

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The focus of this Special Issue on “Plant Responses to Heavy Metals” is primarily on the mechanisms underlying metal toxicity, metal tolerance, and metal (hyper-)accumulation phenomena, particularly in “metallophytes”, i.e., plant species with the ability to genetically adapt to “metalliferous” soils. Special attention will be paid to the biochemical and molecular mechanisms underlying metal-specific “hypertolerance” and “hyperaccumulation” phenomena, i.e., the identification of the transporters and chelators involved in metal uptake, plant-internal transport and sequestration, as well as their activities and localization patterns at the levels of organs and tissues, and subcellularly. In particular, studies from an evolutionary viewpoint are highly appreciated. (How did the trait evolve? Why only in a small minority of plant species? Is this related to “chromosomal instability” (e.g., local duplication)? How?).

Dr. Henk Schat
Guest Editor

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Keywords

metals
tolerance
(hyper-)accumulation
mechanisms
genetics
evolution

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 5367 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ectopic Expression of PvHMA2.1 Enhances Cadmium Tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana

by Hui Zang, Junyi He, Qi Zhang, Xue Li, Tingting Wang, Xiaojing Bi and Yunwei Zhang

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(4), 3544; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24043544 - 10 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1798

Abstract

Cadmium (Cd) in soil inhibits plant growth and development and even harms human health through food chain transmission. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), a perennial C4 biofuel crop, is considered an ideal plant for phytoremediation due to its high efficiency in removing Cd and other heavy metals from contaminated soil. The key to understanding the mechanisms of switchgrass Cd tolerance is to identify the genes involved in Cd transport. Heavy-metal ATPases (HMAs) play pivotal roles in heavy metal transport, including Cd, in Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa, but little is known about the functions of their orthologs in switchgrass. Therefore, we identified 22 HMAs in switchgrass, which were distributed on 12 chromosomes and divided into 4 groups using a phylogenetic analysis. Then, we focused on PvHMA2.1, which is one of the orthologs of the rice Cd transporter OsHMA2. We found that PvHMA2.1 was widely expressed in roots, internodes, leaves, spikelets, and inflorescences, and was significantly induced in the shoots of switchgrass under Cd treatment. Moreover, PvHMA2.1 was found to have seven transmembrane domains and localized at the cell plasma membrane, indicating that it is a potential transporter. The ectopic expression of PvHMA2.1 alleviated the reduction in primary root length and the loss of fresh weight of Arabidopsis seedlings under Cd treatment, suggesting that PvHMA2.1 enhanced Cd tolerance in Arabidopsis. The higher levels of relative water content and chlorophyll content of the transgenic lines under Cd treatment reflected that PvHMA2.1 maintained water retention capacity and alleviated photosynthesis inhibition under Cd stress in Arabidopsis. The roots of the PvHMA2.1 ectopically expressed lines accumulated less Cd compared to the WT, while no significant differences were found in the Cd contents of the shoots between the transgenic lines and the WT under Cd treatment, suggesting that PvHMA2.1 reduced Cd absorption from the environment through the roots in Arabidopsis. Taken together, our results showed that PvHMA2.1 enhanced Cd tolerance in Arabidopsis, providing a promising target that could be engineered in switchgrass to repair Cd-contaminated soil. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Responses to Heavy Metals)

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22 pages, 7769 KiB

Open AccessReview

Micro-Evolutionary Processes in Armeria maritima at Metalliferous Sites

by Małgorzata Wierzbicka, Agnieszka Abratowska, Olga Bemowska-Kałabun, Dorota Panufnik-Mędrzycka, Paweł Wąsowicz, Monika Wróbel, Damian Trzybiński and Krzysztof Woźniak

Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(5), 4650; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24054650 - 28 Feb 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1514

Abstract

Tolerance to heavy metals in plants is a model process used to study adaptations to extremely unfavorable environments. One species capable of colonizing areas with high contents of heavy metals is Armeria maritima (Mill.) Wild. A. maritima plants growing in metalliferous areas differ in their morphological features and tolerance levels to heavy metals compared to individuals of the same species growing in non-metalliferous areas. The A. maritima adaptations to heavy metals occur at the organismal, tissue, and cellular levels (e.g., the retention of metals in roots, enrichment of the oldest leaves with metals, accumulation of metals in trichomes, and excretion of metals by salt glands of leaf epidermis). This species also undergoes physiological and biochemical adaptations (e.g., the accumulation of metals in vacuoles of the root’s tannic cells and secretion of such compounds as glutathione, organic acids, or HSP17). This work reviews the current knowledge on A. maritima adaptations to heavy metals occurring in zinc–lead waste heaps and the species’ genetic variation from exposure to such habitats. A. maritima is an excellent example of microevolution processes in plants inhabiting anthropogenically changed areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Responses to Heavy Metals)

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