Heavy Metal Contamination in Plants and Soil

Dear Colleagues,

Heavy metal contamination in soils and plants constitutes a substantial threat to ecosystems, agriculture, and human health. Industrialization, mining, and poor waste disposal increase toxic metals like cadmium, lead, arsenic, mercury, and chromium in the environment, affecting the food chain and ecological balance. Plants interact with contaminated soils by the uptake, exclusion, toleration, or hyperaccumulation of metals. A comprehensive understanding of these mechanisms is essential for the development of sustainable strategies aimed at mitigating heavy metal toxicity, enhancing phytoremediation efforts, and ensuring food safety.

In recent decades, significant progress has been made in understanding how plants adapt to heavy metal stress, focusing on metal transporters, ROS–antioxidant interactions, detoxification by phytochelatins and metallothioneins, and plant–microbe interactions for soil remediation. Emerging technologies, like omics and nanotechnology, provide further insights. However, challenges persist in applying lab findings to real-world scenarios, such as understanding hyperaccumulation genetics, the long-term ecological effects of phytoremediation, and the effectiveness of traditional and new soil amendments in metal immobilization. Developing affordable and scalable solutions for contaminated soils, especially in developing regions, remains a priority.

This Special Issue seeks submissions on heavy metal contamination in plants and soils, including research articles, reviews, and methodological papers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Mechanisms of metal uptake and detoxification in plants;
• Soil–plant interactions affecting metal bioavailability;
• Phytoremediation and biofortification strategies;
• Application of ecological and agronomic strategies;
• Comprehensive impacts of remediation measures on soil health and food safety;
• Application of omics and computational approaches;
• Sustainable mitigation techniques like biochar and genetic engineering;
• Policy and risk assessments.

We encourage studies from molecular to field levels, involving model plants, crops, and wild species, including unsuccessful cases and analyses of their causes.

Dr. De Chen
Prof. Dr. Liqiang Cui
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.

• heavy metal toxicity
• phytoremediation
• soil contamination
• metal transporters
• oxidative stress
• hyperaccumulators
• omics approaches
• rhizosphere microbiome
• sustainable agriculture
• food security