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A GIS map of the cement factory at Hyderabad Highway. The factory is located at the center, and the red-colored dots show the 4 sampling locations within the radius of 10 km.
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Asbestos is an industrially important microfiber present in cement industries and some mining sites and is very toxic to plant growth and development, but it has been neglected over the years. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the hazardous effects of asbestos on the growth and development of two important grass species (switchgras...
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... samples were taken in total and carefully packed in polythene bags, labeled, and transported to the laboratory for further analysis. Map of the sampling location was obtained by using ArcGIS Pro 3.1 (Figure 1). Samples were air-dried for 2 days, and impurities were removed by sieving the samples to ensure a constant particle size of 2 mm. ...
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... Asbestos is a subset of mineral silicates with fibrous structures of different lengths and widths (Thives et al., 2022). In general, asbestos fibers are separated into two types: serpentine (chrysotile) and amphibole (amosite, anthophyllite, actinolite, tremolite, and crocidolite) (Saleem et al., 2022). Physical shape is the main distinction criterion between amphibole and serpentine asbestos, while the first type is linear and the latter is curved (Wieland et al., 2022). ...
Airborne asbestos has been a concerning pollutant in many high-traffic and industrial megacities such as Tehran. In 2011, the Department of Environment in Iran approved the prohibition of asbestos usage in industries. Since 2009, Tehran Air Quality Control Company has monitored fibrous pollutants using phase contrast microscopy. However, this method is not sufficient for asbestos monitoring. To assess the significance of asbestos prohibition law and the current levels of ambient airborne asbestos, the combination of this method with scanning electron microscopy was used in a high-traffic area, a subway station, a construction zone, and two urban tunnels. In the following, the effectiveness of the asbestos ban law was investigated using these investigations and the ten-year archive of fibrous pollutant concentrations provided by the Tehran Air Quality Control Company. Scanning electron microscopy showed that most of the fibers in different regions are not asbestos (while some exceptions showed less than 0.0001 (f/ml) of actinolite), and other types of fiber particles exist in the ambient air of Tehran. The average concentrations of fibers in tunnels and subway were 0.00161 and 0.001774 (PCM f/ml), respectively. The statistical analysis indicated no significant difference between the average concentrations in working days and holidays (p > 0.05). No linear relationships were observed between the fiber concentrations and meteorological parameters. Moreover, the average fiber concentration and actinolite observed at the construction site were estimated roughly at 0.000605 and 0.0001 (f/ml), respectively. Such evidence indicates the effectiveness of the Asbestos Prohibition Act, as the average concentration of 11 monitored stations has decreased by about 53% in 2020 compared to 2012. As a result, this research emphasizes that asbestos should be totally banned in private and public locations, not only in Tehran; but also throughout the country. In addition, the findings suggest that the monitoring network should expand the partial investigation of various fibrous contaminants as a strategic part of the air pollution monitoring program.
... The biotic and abiotic factors including cold, heat, drought [1][2][3], heavy metals [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], salt concentration [12,13], and nutrient deficiency [14] drastically affect crop yield and productivity [15][16][17]. Sustainable agriculture requires crop production (yield) and quality while ameliorating biotic [18][19][20][21] and abiotic constraints [22,23]. ...
The study was designed to evaluate the genetic background of indigenous germplasm by using simple sequence repeats (SSRs) gene markers for the selection of elite lines with multiple gene combinations that can be used in breeding programs for wheat improvement against rust disease. The principal component analysis (PCA) was constructed to estimate the genetic difference between the accessions and revealed an 85.3% variation. A high level of association was found between markers XWMC170 /XGWM608, XGWM44a/XGWM44b, XGDM111a/XGWM129, XWMC765a/XWMC765b, and GWM148a/XWMC765b while low level of correlation was observed between the markers CSLV34b and CSLV34a i.e -0.688 followed by GWM148a and XGWM129 (-0.633). Cluster analysis revealed three main groups but group A was totally different from B and C with a genetic distance of 18.5 revealing that these accessions had totally different genetic bases and were more diversified than the others. A total of 40 reported genetic markers (SSRs) were utilized to amplify the required bands for identifying the genes and their genetic distance in terms of variations between the wheat germplasm. The highest amplification was revealed by XGDM19 (130bp), WMC773 (298bp), XWMC331a (210bp), BARC114a (105bp), barc86a (200bp), and XBARC4a (90bp) i.e. 50, 48, 47, 46, 45, and 42 respectively. The study was useful as disease-related SSR markers were used for general diversity, making the single SSR marker used for multiple purposes including disease resistance, genetic diversity, and mineral or ion identification. It will ultimately help in saving the cost, time, and effort rather than using individual/ or specific markers for evaluating the genetic distance or base for the diversity analysis.
... The use of willow biochar produced at 700°C in heavy metal-contaminated soils could reduce the mortality of microorganisms [113,114]. Through the immobilization of heavy metals such aluminum, cobalt, chromium, manganese, cadmium, and nickel on the pore of biochar [115,116], it also improved the reproduction of Folsomia candida and reduced the leachate toxicity to Vibrio fischeri. This reduces soil contaminants and creates ideal circumstances for the development of both plants and microorganisms [117]. ...
Many techniques have been employed in restoring the health of physically, chemically and biologically degraded soils. Some of these techniques are expensive, time consuming and may involve soil excavation or chemical treatments with numerous washes in some cases. There is a novel technique that is cheap, can restore the properties of a degraded soil, mitigate climate change and sequestrate carbon in the soil. That technique is the biochar technology. In this review, we’ll look at biochar technology as an ameliorant in improving impoverished soils. Biochar is a carbon-rich substance that is produced when biomass (feedstock) is subjected to a thermal decomposition process under limited oxygen called pyrolysis. Biochar can be used to ameliorate soil acidity and alkalinity depending on the feedstock. It has advantages such as increasing cation exchange capacity, soil carbon and nutrient in the soil. Biochar can be inoculated with specific organisms for pollutant breakdown and acts as a habitat for naturally occurring microbes; by binding pollutants in the soil through the process of bioaccumulation, sorption, electrostatic attraction and precipitation, it acts as a remediation agent. However, the feedstock, pyrolysis temperature, and heating period can all affect the properties of biochar and its biological processes.
... Several studies indicate that the exposure of the plant to abiotic stresses, such as heavy metals, affects the production of chlorophylls and carotenoids by interfering with the synthesis of chlorophyll by the inhibition of enzymes involved in this process (Abeed and Dawood 2020Ahmed et al. 2023;Alshegaihi et al. 2023). To counteract oxidative stress, plants have developed an antioxidant system that involves a lot of products such as glutathione GSH, and ascorbic acid AA (Rehman et al. 2020aSaleem et al. 2022). The presence of environmental stressors like PVC-MPs could lead to an imbalance in oxidative stress, and this imbalance results in increased production of harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) and a reduction in the activity of key antioxidant enzymes such as SOD, APX, POD, and CAT (Mfarrej et al. 2022;Saleem et al. 2020a). ...
The present work studied the impact of different levels of PVC–microplastics (PVC–MPs), namely 0 (no PVC–MPs), 2, and 4 mg L⁻¹, along with mercury (Hg) levels of 0 (no Hg), 10, and 25 mg kg⁻¹ in the soil, while concurrently applying titanium dioxide–nanoparticles (TiO2–NPs) at 0 (no TiO2–NPs), 50, and 100 µg mL⁻¹ to sorghum (Pennisetum glaucum L.) plants. This study aimed to examine plant growth and biomass, photosynthetic pigments and gas exchange characteristics, oxidative stress indicators, and the response of various antioxidants (enzymatic and non-enzymatic) and their specific gene expression, proline metabolism, the AsA–GSH cycle, and cellular fractionation in the plants. The research outcomes indicated that elevated levels of PVC–MPs and Hg stress in the soil notably reduced plant growth and biomass, photosynthetic pigments, and gas exchange attributes. However, PVC–MPs and Hg stress also induced oxidative stress in the roots and shoots of the plants by increasing malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and electrolyte leakage (EL) which also induced increased compounds of various enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants and also the gene expression and sugar content. Furthermore, a significant increase in proline metabolism, the AsA–GSH cycle, and the pigmentation of cellular components was observed. Although, the application of TiO2–NPs showed a significant increase in plant growth and biomass, gas exchange characteristics, enzymatic and non-enzymatic compounds, and their gene expression and also decreased oxidative stress. In addition, the application of TiO2–NPs enhanced cellular fractionation and decreased the proline metabolism and AsA-GSH cycle in P. glaucum plants. These results open new insights for sustainable agriculture practices and hold immense promise in addressing the pressing challenges of heavy metal contamination in agricultural soils.
... In the process of phytoremediation, plants are used to remove toxic contaminants to mitigate the harmful repercussions of heavy metals, and organic compounds. To remove the organic contaminants, several mechanisms include degradation, stabilization, rhizoremediation, and volatilization but for heavy metals sequestration and extraction are utilized by plants (Patra et al. 2020;Saleem et al. 2022). As compared to other bioremediation techniques, phytoremediation is a more effective, feasible, and simpler technique. ...
Environmental pollution due to toxic heavy metals and organic pollutants has become a global concern because of its adverse effects on plants, animals, as well as humans via food chain contamination. However, the elimination of these harmful contaminants from the polluted media requires abundant energy and complex engineering techniques. Bioremediation offers the best possible solution to reduce or remove these noxious pollutants with minimum energy costs. Microremediation, mycoremediation, and cyanoremediation have effectively eliminated or degraded toxic contaminants and resultantly promoted plant growth and development. Phytoremediation is also an environmentally friendly technique to remove pernicious pollutants using different mechanisms such as phytostabilization, phytofiltration, phytodegradation, phytoextraction, and phytostimulation. Further, the efficiency of phytoremediation can be enhanced using electric current, chelating agents, plant growth regulators, soil amendments, co-cropping, and bacterial inoculation resulting in more removal of pollutants due to high biomass production. Furthermore, plants deploy various stress tolerance mechanisms to mitigate the detrimental effects of harmful pollutants and maintain cellular redox homeostasis. The tolerance mechanisms exhibit the maintenance of plant physiological and biochemical processes and promote plant growth and crop improvement through various protective approaches. Phytoremediation is not only used to remove harmful pollutants but also offers the purification of soil, water, and air. In addition, phytoremediation is a green technology and economically viable. The efficacy of phytoremediation depends upon various factors including soil characteristics, type of pollutant, presence of organic matter, and properties of microflora in the rhizosphere. Additionally, disposal methods for the toxic plant waste are also of significant importance in the proper transport and dumping without any leakage of leachate from the disposal sites. However, the knowledge of the interaction between plants and microbial communities in the rhizosphere regarding the efficient removal of toxic pollutants has not been investigated fully. Therefore, a comprehensive study is still needed to investigate the involved mechanisms and more advanced technologies should be developed to purge toxic contaminants efficiently.
... Plants respond to metal ion stress via refraining from excessive metal-ion absorption and restricting metal-ion transport to shoots [35,36]. In certain plant species, the roots retain a high quantity of Mn, whereas only a slight amount is transported to the shoots [37,38]. Another method is linked to the toleration of plant tissue, with excessive metallic elements compartmentalized in saccules or complexed with organic substances [39,40]. ...
Manganese (Mn) is among one of the essential trace elements for normal plant development; however, excessive Mn can cause plant growth and development to be hindered. Nevertheless, the regulatory mechanisms of plant root response to Mn poisoning remain unclear. In the present study, results revealed that the root growth was inhibited when exposed to Mn poisoning. Physiological results showed that the antioxidase enzyme activities (peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, ascorbate peroxidase, and catalase) and the proline, malondialdehyde, and soluble sugar contents increased significantly under Mn toxicity stress (100 μM Mn), whereas the soluble protein and four hormones’ (indolebutyric acid, abscisic acid, indoleacetic acid, and gibberellic acid 3) contents decreased significantly. In addition, the Mn, Fe, Na, Al, and Se contents in the roots increased significantly, whereas those of Mg, Zn, and K decreased significantly. Furthermore, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis was used to test the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of soybean root under Mn poisoning. The results found 45,274 genes in soybean root and 1430 DEGs under Mn concentrations of 5 (normal) and 100 (toxicity) μM. Among these DEGs, 572 were upregulated and 858 were downregulated, indicating that soybean roots may initiate complex molecular regulatory mechanisms on Mn poisoning stress. The results of quantitative RT-PCR indicated that many DEGs were upregulated or downregulated markedly in the roots, suggesting that the regulation of DEGs may be complex. Therefore, the regulatory mechanism of soybean root on Mn toxicity stress is complicated. Present results lay the foundation for further study on the molecular regulation mechanism of function genes involved in regulating Mn tolerance traits in soybean roots.
... The heavy metal uptake by the roots and shoots of the lemon grass depend on the As concentration in soil and its bioavailability (AbdElgawad et al., 2020;Khan et al., 2020;Saleem et al., 2022). In general, heavy metal toxicity depends on the metal's chemical nature and its site of action in plant tissues; most heavy metals are likely to have different site(s) of action within the plants. ...
Arsenic (As) is a toxic and non-essential metalloid, with known detrimental effects on sustainable agricultural production. Therefore, this study assessed the negative effects of As on lemon grass and how methyl jasmonate (MeJA) mitigated those effects. Interestingly, lemon grass showed no toxicity symptoms under mild As-stress, however plants under severe stress showed early senescence and chlorosis, indicating a decrease in nitrogen content under As-treatment. The results revealed that various physiological and biochemical mechanisms were negatively affected by As-induced oxidative stress. The high production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) (8.3-fold), hydroxide ion (OH−) (5.4-fold), superoxide radicals (O2−) (5.2-fold), malondialdehyde (MDA) (2.9-fold), and methylglyoxal (MG) (3.7-fold) caused oxidative injury to lemon grass undergoing As-stress (120 mM). To ameliorate the ROS- and MG-induced oxidative damages, the glutathione-ascorbate (GSH-AsA) cycle and its related antioxidants played a crucial role in ROS detoxification under high As stress. Furthermore, the results revealed that ROS- and MG-induced oxidative stress negatively impacted the metabolic profile of lemon grass under As stress. The ROS- and MG-induced oxidative damage resulted in lowering antioxidants, proline, organic acids, proteins, and amino acids content. Additionally, the current study demonstrated the usefulness of exogenous MeJA application, which considerably improved the plants’ antioxidant defense system and metabolic profile wgich resulted in the reduction of ROS and MG levels by neutralizing the ROS- and MG-induced oxidative damage under As-stress in lemon grass. Collectively, the current study provided insights into the physiological and biochemical pathways of the As-mediated ROS- and MG-induced oxidative damage in lemon grass and its mitigation through exogenous MeJA application.
... In the presence of high levels of salt stress, an excessive amount of energy is directed towards molecular oxygen, leading to the activation of oxygen poisoning through the overproduction of singlet oxygen, superoxide ion, hydrogen peroxide, and various other free oxygen radicals [15,16]. These free radicals have detrimental effects on proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and other large molecules, causing damage [17,18]. High salt levels can lead to a series of changes in morphology, physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology of cells and tissues in many plant species [19,20]. ...
We conducted a study to examine the growth and physiological changes in 12 different ecotypes of Sesuvium portulacastrum collected from Hainan Island in China. These ecotypes were subjected to different concentrations (0, 200, 400, and 600 mmol/L) of sodium chloride (NaCl) salt stress for 14 days. We also analyzed the expression of metabolic genes related to stress response. Under low salt stress, indicators such as plant height in region K (0 mmol/L: 45% and highest at 200 mmol/L: 80%), internode length (0 mmol/L: 0.38, 200 mmol/L: 0.87, 400 mmol/L: 0.25, and 600 mmol/L: 1.35), as well as leaf area, relative water content, fresh weight, and dry weight exhibited an overall increasing trend with the increase in salt concentration. However, as the salt concentration increased, these indicators showed a decreasing trend. Proline and malondialdehyde contents increased with higher salt concentrations. When the NaCl concentration was 400 mmol/L, MDA content in the leaves was highest in the regions E (196.23%), F (94.28%), J (170.10%), and K (136.08%) as compared to the control group, respectively. Most materials demonstrated a significant decrease in chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and total chlorophyll content compared to the control group. Furthermore, the ratio of chlorophyll a to chlorophyll b (Rab) varied among different materials. Using principal component analysis, we identified three ecotypes (L from Xinglong Village, Danzhou City; B from Shuigoupo Village, Lingshui County; and J from Haidongfang Park, Dongfang City) that represented high, medium, and low salt tolerance levels, respectively, based on the above growth and physiological indexes. To further investigate the expression changes of related genes at the transcriptional level, we employed qRT-PCR. The results showed that the relative expression of SpP5CS1, SpLOX1, and SpLOX1 genes increased with higher salt concentrations, which corresponded to the accumulation of proline and malondialdehyde content, respectively. However, the relative expression of SpCHL1a and SpCHL1b did not exhibit a consistent pattern. This study contributes to our understanding of the salt tolerance mechanism in the true halophyte S. portulacastrum, providing a solid theoretical foundation for further research in this field.
... 3 Although climate change is now confined as a global singularity, 4−6 however, its sternness is more extensively sensed in emerging countries, owing to their more liabilities and the low level of capability to alleviate its effects. The economies of most of the developing countries including Pakistan are based on agriculture; their farming region is the utmost affected sector due to exposure to environmental constraints such as salinity, 7,8 drought, heavy metals, 9,10 nutrient deficiencies, 11,12 and temperature. The broad spectrum changes in droughts, 13 rain patterns, floods, and temperature are considered consequences of variations in climate, which will decline agricultural production in developing countries. ...
The threat of varying global climates has greatly driven the attention of scientists, as climate change increases the odds of worsening drought in many parts of Pakistan and the world in the decades ahead. Keeping in view the forthcoming climate change, the present study aimed to evaluate the influence of varying levels of induced drought stress on the physiological mechanisms of drought resistance in selected maize cultivars. The sandy loam rhizospheric soil with moisture content 0.43−0.5 g g −1, organic matter (OM) 0.43−0.55 g/kg, N 0.022−0.027 g/kg, P 0.028−0.058 g/kg, and K 0.017−0.042 g/kg was used in the present experiments. The findings showed that a significant drop in the leaf water status, chlorophyll content, and carotenoid content was linked to an increase in sugar, proline, and antioxidant enzyme accumulation at p < 0.05 under induced drought stress, along with an increase in protein content as a dominant response for both cultivars. SVI-I & II, RSR, LAI, LAR, TB, CA, CB, CC, peroxidase (POD), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) content under drought stress were studied for variance analysis in terms of interactions between drought and NAA treatment and were found significant at p < 0.05 after 15 days. It has been found that the exogenous application of NAA alleviated the inhibitory effect of only short-term water stress, but yield loss due to long-term osmotic stress will not be faced employing growth regulators. Climate-smart agriculture is the only approach to reduce the detrimental impact of global fluctuations, such as drought stress, on crop adaptability before they have a significant influence on world crop production.
... It also enhanced the reproduction of Folsomia candida and reduced the leachate toxicity to Vibrio fischeri. The possible mechanism involved is the immobilization of organic pollutants and heavy metals (Zainab et al. 2021;Bibi et al. 2024;Saleem et al. 2022) like nickel, manganese, chromium, cobalt, cadmium and aluminum on the surface or pore of biochar. This mitigates the soil pollutants and provides favorable conditions for the growth of microorganisms as well as plants (Zielińska and Oleszczuk 2016). ...
Excessive exploitation of agricultural land has degraded the environment. Biochar application to soil has gained attention as an eco-friendly method to improve soil fertilization and crop production. Despite many advantages, some concerns regarding the benefits of biochar, in the long run, need to be addressed. For instance, biochar can sequester nutrients and water, and thus make them unavailable to microorganisms and plants. Here we review the advantages and drawbacks of applying biochar in agricultural fields.
