Abstract
Increasing soil cadmium (Cd) contamination is a serious threat to human food health and safety. In order to reduce Cd uptake and Cd toxicity in silage maize, hydroponic tests were conducted to investigate the effect of exogenous Cd on the toxicity of silage maize in this study. In the study, a combination of Cd (5, 20, 50, 80, and 10 μM) treatments was applied in a hydroponic system. With increasing Cd concentration, Cd significantly inhibited the total root length (RL), root surface area (SA), root volume (RV), root tip number (RT), and branching number (RF) of maize seedlings, which were reduced by 28.1 to 71.3%, 20.2 to 64.9%, 11.2 to 56.5%, 43.7 to 63.4%, and 38.2 to 72.6%, respectively. The excessive Cd accumulation inhibited biomass accumulation and reduced silage maize growth, photosynthesis, and chlorophyll content and activated the antioxidant systems, including increasing lipid peroxidation and stimulating catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD), but reduced the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) in the root. Besides, selenium (Se) significantly decreased the Cd concentration of the shoot and root by 27.1% and 35.1% under Cd50, respectively. Our results reveal that exogenously applied Cd reduced silage maize growth and impaired photosynthesis. Whereas silage maize can tolerate Cd by increasing the concentration of ascorbate and glutathione and activating the antioxidant defense system, the application of exogenous selenium significantly reduced the content of Cd in silage maize.
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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30900163), Key Research Projects of Higher Education Institutions in Henan Province (24A210011), and College Students’ Innovative Entrepreneurial Training Plan Program (2023CX162).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and experimental design. Jin WH and Lan C: data curation and writing the original draft. Jin WH and Shi Y: project administration, supervision, and validation. Liu CY and Jiao QJ: investigation and methodology. Wang HY and Deng ZL: conceptualization, software, visualization, resources, and investigation. Shi Y, Liu HT, and Guo HX: writing, review, and editing. The first authors Jin WH and Lan C contributed equally to this manuscript. All authors read and approved the final versions. All authors have contributed to the submitted paper.
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Jin, W., Cheng, L., Liu, C. et al. Cadmium negatively affects the growth and physiological status and the alleviation effects by exogenous selenium in silage maize (Zea mays L.). Environ Sci Pollut Res 31, 21646–21658 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32557-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32557-x