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Plant Responses to Heavy Metals: From Deficiency to Excess, 2nd Edition

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2025 | Viewed by 994

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anna D. Kozhevnikova

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
K.A. Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 35 Botanicheskaya st., Moscow 127276, Russia
Interests: metal transport, localization and distribution in plants; mechanisms of metal hyperaccumulation; mechanisms of plant metal tolerance; microscopy; histochemical techniques; plant functional anatomy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Ilya Vladimirovich Seregin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
K.A. Timiryazev Institute of Plant Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 35 Botanicheskaya st., Moscow 127276, Russia
Interests: metal transport, localization and distribution in plants; mechanisms of metal hyperaccumulation and tolerance; development of histochemical methods for metal detection in plant tissues
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is a continuation of our previous Special Issue, “Plant Responses to Heavy Metals: From Deficiency to Excess”.

Some heavy metals, such as copper, manganese, nickel, and zinc, are essential for most plants but toxic when supplied in supraoptimal quantities, while the biological role for cadmium, mercury, and lead, with rare exceptions, is unknown, and they are toxic even at fairly low concentrations in the environment. Both metal deficiency and metal excess can drastically affect different physiological processes in plants, leading to significant changes in plant growth and morphogenesis, as well as plant productivity. This Special Issue is focused mainly on the mechanisms of metal effects, plant responses to heavy metals, metal tolerance, and metal (hyper-)accumulation at the biochemical, physiological, molecular, genetic, and epigenetic levels.

We welcome the submission of reviews and original research articles on the following topics: heavy metal homeostasis in plants; plant responses to metal deficiency and excess; metal effects on plant growth and development; metal localization and distribution in plants; metal uptake and translocation; metal tolerance proteins; metal chelators involved in the transport and compartmentalization of heavy metals; heavy metal detoxification and signal transduction pathways; the physiological and molecular mechanisms of metal accumulation in hyperaccumulator and non-hyperaccumulator plants; and the role of antioxidants in the amelioration of metal toxicity.

Dr. Anna D. Kozhevnikova
Dr. Ilya Vladimirovich Seregin
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. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. 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

  • heavy metals
  • deficiency
  • metal toxicity
  • metal (hyper-)accumulation
  • mechanisms of metal tolerance
  • metal transport
  • metal uptake
  • metal sequestration
  • metal homeostasis

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 7658 KB  
Article
Transcriptome Analysis of Different Chinese Cabbage Varieties Under Cd and Pb Stresses
by Shiqi Peng, Hao Zhang, Junlei Wang, Liyuan Mu, Sijing Sun, Ao Li, Naiming Zhang and Li Bao
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2025, 26(18), 8945; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26188945 - 14 Sep 2025
Viewed by 177
Abstract
In recent years, soil heavy metal pollution has become increasingly serious, particularly Cd and Pb pollution, and heavy metals have been accumulating in soil–crop systems, posing great risks to human health. In this study, four Chinese cabbage varieties with different Cd and Pb [...] Read more.
In recent years, soil heavy metal pollution has become increasingly serious, particularly Cd and Pb pollution, and heavy metals have been accumulating in soil–crop systems, posing great risks to human health. In this study, four Chinese cabbage varieties with different Cd and Pb accumulation traits were cultivated using hydroponics and transcriptome sequencing technology to reveal the response mechanism of Chinese cabbage to Cd and Pb stress at the molecular level. The numbers of upregulated genes in Harmony Express (H) and Ziwei F1 (F) were 2904 and 3004, respectively, under Cd stress (0 mg/L vs. 80 mg/L), whereas the numbers of upregulated genes in Green Crown (L) and Suzhou Green (S) were 3424 and 2724, respectively, under Pb stress (0 mg/L vs. 1200 mg/L). GO enrichment analysis revealed that 52 functional subgroups were enriched in H0 vs. H80 and F0 vs. F80, and 79 functional subgroups were enriched in L0 vs. L1200 and S0 vs. S1200. KEGG enrichment indicated that secondary metabolite biosynthesis, metabolic pathways, and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis are important regulators of the response to Cd and Pb stress in Chinese cabbage. In addition, genes related to antioxidant enzymes (e.g., CAT and glutathione transferase), metal transporter proteins (e.g., ABC), mitogen-activated protein kinases, and calmodulin were significantly differentially expressed, suggesting that they are jointly involved in the detoxification of Chinese cabbage in response to heavy metal stress. In total, 881 and 858 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the transcription factor family responded to Cd and Pb stress, respectively. This study reveals the response mechanism of Chinese cabbage to Cd and Pb stress at the molecular level and provides a theoretical basis for the cultivation of low-Cd and low-Pb-enriched varieties and the mining of heavy metal tolerance genes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Responses to Heavy Metals: From Deficiency to Excess, 2nd Edition)
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17 pages, 2237 KB  
Article
Bioaccumulation of the Heavy Metal Cadmium and Its Tolerance Mechanisms in Experimental Plant Suaeda salsa
by Qingchao Ge, Tianqian Zhang, Liming Jin, Dazuo Yang, Yang Cui, Huan Zhao and Jie He
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2025, 26(14), 6988; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26146988 - 21 Jul 2025
Viewed by 514
Abstract
Suaeda salsa is relatively tolerant to cadmium (Cd) contamination. In order to investigate the bioaccumulation and stress responses of S. salsa under chronic exposure, we explored the growth, accumulation, and changes in antioxidant enzymes and glutathione (GSH) under different Cd concentrations over a [...] Read more.
Suaeda salsa is relatively tolerant to cadmium (Cd) contamination. In order to investigate the bioaccumulation and stress responses of S. salsa under chronic exposure, we explored the growth, accumulation, and changes in antioxidant enzymes and glutathione (GSH) under different Cd concentrations over a 30-day soil culture experiment. Seedling height and weight in the 13.16 mg/kg Cd group were 13.26 cm and 0.21 g, significantly higher than the control group. Growth was significantly inhibited under high Cd concentration exposure, with a seedling and root length of 9.65 cm and 3.77 cm. The Cd concentration in all tissues was positively related to Cd treatment concentration, with the Cd contents in the roots being higher than in the other tissues. At a subcellular level, Cd was mainly concentrated in the cell walls, organelles, and soluble components within the range of 0.05–8.29, 0.02–2.40 and 0.08–1.35 μg/g, respectively. The accumulation of Cd in the roots tracked its proportion in the cell walls. The malondialdehyde (MDA) content of the plant tissues increased with increasing Cd concentration, indicating that Cd stress caused oxidative damage. The GSH content increased with increasing Cd concentration, with maximum values of 0.515 μmol/g in the stem in the 66.07 mg/kg Cd group. The catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and peroxidase (POD) activity showed different change trends under Cd exposure. The results in this study could provide useful information on the tolerance mechanism of Cd in S. salsa, which provides information for exploiting S. salsa as a candidate for phytoremediation of Cd contamination. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plant Responses to Heavy Metals: From Deficiency to Excess, 2nd Edition)
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