Cadmium toxicity in plants

Heavy metals are important environmental pollutants and their toxicity is a problem of increasing significance for ecological, evolutionary, nutritional, and environmental reasons. Plants posses homeostatic cellular mechanisms to regulate the concentration of metal ions inside the cell to minimize the potential damage that could result from the exposure to nonessential metal ions. This paper summarizes present knowledge in the field of higher plant responses to cadmium, an important environmental pollutant. Knowledge concerning metal toxicity, including mechanisms of cadmium homeostasis, uptake, transport and accumulation are evaluated. The role of the cell wall, the plasma membrane and the mycorrhizas, as the…