Heavy Metals Toxicity in Plants and Phytoremediation as Sustainable Approach

Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to participate in a Special Issue of the MDPI journal “Sustainability” titled “Heavy Metals Toxicity in Plants and Phytoremediation as Sustainable Approach”.

In recent years, heavy metals (HMs) toxicity has emerged as one of the greatest threats to crop production, one which might become even more prevalent in the coming decades. Increased anthropogenic activities such as modern agriculture practicing, fertilizer application, and extensive use of groundwater for irrigation, sewage disposal, mining, and industrialization have disturbed the distribution of HMs, leading to their accumulation in several areas. Even a slight upsurge in the HM concentration beyond the permissible limit causes harmful effects to living entities. The acquaintance of plants to HM-contaminated growing areas reduces crop performance by altering vegetative and reproductive development, eventually affecting the sustainability of agricultural production.

HMs are a group of 52 metals—including cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), cobalt (Co), mercury (Hg), and arsenic (As)—which directly affect performance of plants in a concentration-dependent manner. Plants are a key factor, and play an important role in life on earth; since the beginning, they have modified their anatomy, physio–biochemistry, and molecular networks to survive under changing environmental conditions. Plants accumulate HMs through their roots and deposit them in different parts of the plants, a process which can be highly toxic. To combat HMs stress, plants employ several defense mechanisms. Some plants work effectively against HMs toxicity and have adopted a number of strategies to protect their lives, with heavy metal sequestration as one of the most vital processes. HMs sequestration is one of the key responses of plants to prevent metal dependence. However, systematic knowledge of defense mechanisms against HMs stress and HMs sequestration in plants is still scarce.

Several studies have reported that some plants showed the ability to hyperaccumulate HMs, and some genes which effectively participate and significantly correlate to metals hyperaccumulation and tolerance have also been reported. This fact points to the projection of hyperaccumulator plants and transgenic plants for phytoremediation purposes linked to HMs in polluted areas. Therefore, worldwide researchers have been drawn to phytoremediation as a sustainable strategy to clean up the contaminated environment without causing further ecological disturbances.

The studies within this Special Issue are expected to address:

• The consequences of HMs on food security and the environment;
• HMs and sustainability of agricultural production;
• HMs toxicity in plants;
• HMs detoxification;
• HMs uptake and transport;
• Vacuoles sequestration of HMs;
• Role of defense mechanisms against HMs stress;
• Hyperaccumulators;
• Physio–biochemical mechanisms of HMs accumulation in hyperaccumulators;
• Phytoremediation.

Dr. Naser Karimi
Dr. Zahra Souri
Dr. Muhammad Ansar Farooq
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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 metals stress
• defense mechanisms
• phytoremediation
• hyperaccumulators