Plant Responses to Heavy Metal Contamination and Abiotic Stress
This community investigates how crops and plants absorb, tolerate, and detoxify heavy metals like cadmium and zinc, and how they manage the oxidative stress caused by these contaminants and other environmental pressures.
The research focuses heavily on the physiological and molecular mechanisms of cadmium uptake, accumulation, and toxicity in major food crops, particularly rice, wheat, and maize. A central theme is the plant's antioxidant defense system, specifically the regulation of reactive oxygen species and the role of signaling molecules like nitric oxide and salicylic acid in mitigating oxidative damage. The work also examines the interaction between heavy metal stress and other abiotic factors, such as drought and salinity, and explores mitigation strategies including the application of silicon, boron, and potassium, as well as the use of nanoparticles and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria to enhance crop resilience and reduce metal accumulation in edible tissues.
The largest share of the community's output is found in cadmium research, accounting for 22.3% of all cadmium research, and 9,189 papers here. It also represents 7.0% of all potassium research and 6.7% of all oxygen research.
The community comprises 32,552 papers, publishing most frequently in Frontiers in Plant Science, Journal of Hazardous Materials, and Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.
Recent work continues to focus on the mechanisms of cadmium stress mitigation in rice and other crops, including the use of boron to inhibit cadmium uptake and the role of silicon oxide nanoparticles in enhancing salinity tolerance.
Papers behind this description
- Antioxidant Defense System in Plants: Reactive Oxygen Species Production, Signaling, and Scavenging During Abiotic Stress-Induced Oxidative Damage — Horticulturae, 2025 — doi:10.3390/horticulturae11050477
- The Role of Polyphenols in Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Their Antioxidant Properties to Scavenge Reactive Oxygen Species and Free Radicals — Antioxidants, 2025 — doi:10.3390/antiox14010074
- Reactive oxygen species: Multidimensional regulators of plant adaptation to abiotic stress and development — Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 2023 — doi:10.1111/jipb.13601
- Plants’ Response Mechanisms to Salinity Stress — Plants, 2023 — doi:10.3390/plants12122253
- Heavy Metal Contamination in Agricultural Soil: Environmental Pollutants Affecting Crop Health — Agronomy, 2023 — doi:10.3390/agronomy13061521
- Mechanisms Of Metal Tolerance In Higher Plants — Heavy Metal Tolerance in Plants, 2024 — doi:10.1201/9781003574903-15
- Environmental persistence, bioaccumulation, and ecotoxicology of heavy metals — Chemistry and Ecology, 2024 — doi:10.1080/02757540.2024.2306839
- Polyphenols in Plants: Structure, Biosynthesis, Abiotic Stress Regulation, and Practical Applications (Review) — International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2023 — doi:10.3390/ijms241813874
- Achieving abiotic stress tolerance in plants through antioxidative defense mechanisms — Frontiers in Plant Science, 2023 — doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1110622
- Proline and ROS: A Unified Mechanism in Plant Development and Stress Response? — Plants, 2024 — doi:10.3390/plants14010002
- Unravelling the mechanisms of antibiotic and heavy metal resistance co-selection in environmental bacteria — FEMS Microbiology Reviews, 2024 — doi:10.1093/femsre/fuae017
- Heavy Metal Induced Oxidative Stress Mitigation and ROS Scavenging in Plants — Plants, 2023 — doi:10.3390/plants12163003
- Heavy metals toxicity in plants: understanding mechanisms and developing coping strategies for remediation: a review — Bioresources and Bioprocessing, 2025 — doi:10.1186/s40643-025-00930-4
- Genetic variability and yield analysis in rice — Electronic Journal of Plant Breeding, 2025 — doi:10.37992/2021.1201.039
- Silicon oxide nanoparticles boost rice resilience to salinity by enhancing antioxidant defenses and stress regulation — Plant Science, 2025 — doi:10.1016/j.plantsci.2025.112588
- Design of rice with low cadmium accumulation in grain using single segment substitution line — New Crops, 2025 — doi:10.1016/j.ncrops.2024.100035
- Reactive oxygen species: balancing agents in plants — Frontiers in Plant Science, 2025 — doi:10.3389/fpls.2025.1713590
- Boron-Mediated Inhibition of Cadmium Uptake in Crops: Mechanisms of Apoplastic Barrier Reinforcement and Transmembrane Transport Regulation — Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2026 — doi:10.1021/acs.jafc.6c00149