Cadmium: A Threatening Agent for Plants
Heavy metal pollution is one of the serious environmental problems, damaging all living organisms globally. Cadmium (Cd) is a nonessential, deadly toxic metal that has a harmful effect on plants. Entry of Cd inside the plant body causes an abiotic stress
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Cadmium: A Threatening Agent for Plants Priyanka Singh, Husna Siddiqui, Fareen Sami, Yamshi Arif, Andrzej Bajguz , and Shamsul Hayat
Abstract
Heavy metal pollution is one of the serious environmental problems, damaging all living organisms globally. Cadmium (Cd) is a nonessential, deadly toxic metal that has a harmful effect on plants. Entry of Cd inside the plant body causes an abiotic stress and provokes the plant to generate anti-stress agents, such as sodium dismutase, catalase, guaiacol peroxidase, and glutathione. Cadmium accumulates in plants and hinders their normal productivity. The accumulation depends on Cd entry in plants via roots, translocation via xylem and phloem, and through different processes, channels, and metal transporter. Even a very small dose of Cd influences the physio-biochemical parameters of the plant. Cadmium stress reduces the efficiency of plants by modulating their morphology, physiology, and biochemistry. This chapter underlines transport, mechanism of action, and regulatory network of Cd, and harmful aspects of Cd exposure to plants. The chapter also discusses the Cd effect on seed germination, growth, development, chlorophyll content, photosystem and photosynthesis, carbon assimilation, and reproduction. Keywords
Antioxidants · Cadmium · Morphology · Photosynthesis · Physiology · Reactive oxygen species · Stress · Toxicity
P. Singh · H. Siddiqui · F. Sami · Y. Arif · S. Hayat (*) Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Botany, Plant Physiology Section, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India A. Bajguz Faculty of Biology, University of Bialystok, Bialystok, Poland # Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 P. Singh et al. (eds.), Plant Responses to Soil Pollution, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4964-9_4
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Introduction
Crops growing under natural environment frequently face the impact of abiotic stresses during their growth period. Different stresses may overlap and affect the productivity and growth of the crop critically. As the defense against these stresses, plants do a couple of changes, like morphological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular (Jongdee et al. 2002; Chinnusamy et al. 2007; Najeeb et al. 2011; Basu et al. 2016; Wang et al. 2016; Anjum et al. 2017). Heavy metals are very dangerous for almost all living organisms present in the environment. Contamination of heavy metals results either from water sources or through biomagnifications. Mining is also one of the sources causing heavy metal contamination (Santona et al. 2006). Heavy metals that are bioactive are broadly classified into two main categories, one as redox active, e.g., iron (Fe), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), and chromium (Cr) and other as nonredox active, e.g., Cd, mercury, (Hg), nickel (Ni), zinc (Zn), and aluminum (Al) (Valko et al. 2005). Metals such as Cu, Cr, and Fe can initiate oxidative injury with the help of Fenton and Haber-Weiss reactions that ultimately produced free radicals of oxygen and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in plants, which result in disrupt
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