Toxic metals and metalloids: Uptake, transport, detoxification, phytoremediation, and crop improvement for safer food

Abstract

Agricultural soils are under threat of toxic metal/metalloid contamination from anthropogenic activities, leading to excessive accumulation of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) in food crops that poses significant risks to human health. Understanding how these toxic metals and their methylated species are taken up, translocated and detoxified is prerequisite to developing strategies to limit their accumulation for safer food. Toxic metals are taken up and transported across different cellular compartments and plant tissues via transporters for essential or beneficial nutrients, e.g. As by phosphate and silicon transporters, and Cd by manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe) transporters. These transport processes are subjected to interactions with nutrients and regulations at the transcription and post-translation levels. Complexation with thiol-rich compounds such as phytochelatins and sequestration in the vacuoles are the common mechanisms for detoxification and for limiting their translocation. A number of genes involved in toxic metal uptake, transport and detoxification have been identified, offering targets for manipulations via gene editing or transgenic technologies. Natural variations in toxic metal accumulation exist within crop germplasm, and some of the quantitative trait loci underlying these variations have been cloned, paving the way for marker-assisted breeding of low metal accumulation crops. Using plants to extract and remove toxic metals from soil is also possible, but this phytoremediation approach requires metal hyperaccumulation for efficiency. Knowledge gaps and future research needs are also discussed.