Abstract
Soil cadmium (Cd) contamination poses adverse impacts on crop yield and quality. Maize is a widely cultivated cereal throughout the world. In this study, field and hydroponic experiments were conducted to investigate the genotypic difference in Cd accumulation and tolerance in maize. There were significant genotypic differences in grain Cd concentrations among 95 genotypes. From these 95 genotypes, L42 which showed a higher grain Cd concentration and L63 which showed a lower grain Cd concentration was selected for further study. Under Cd stress, L63 showed much less reduction in plant growth than L42 compared with the control. Seedlings of L63 recorded higher Cd concentration in roots, but lower in shoots L42, indicating that the low grain Cd concentration in L63 is mainly due to the low rate of transportation of Cd from roots to shoots. Most Cd accumulated in epidermis and xylem vessels of L63, while the green fluorescent was found across almost the entire cross-section of root in L42. Obvious ultrastructural damage was observed in L42 under Cd stress, especially in mesophyll cells, while L63 was less affected. These findings could contribute to developing low Cd accumulation and high tolerance maize cultivars.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31501233) and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY20C130007).
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HD and FC planned and designed the research; KL, DVW, and MZ carried out experiments; DVW and FC analysed data; KL, DVW, HD, and FC drafted the manuscript. IA revised the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Kaina Lin and Darron V. Williams contributed equally to this work.
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Lin, K., Williams, D.V., Zeng, M. et al. Identification of low grain cadmium accumulation genotypes and its physiological mechanism in maize (Zea mays L.). Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 20721–20730 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16991-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16991-9