Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria synergistically enhance growth and cadmium accumulation of hyperaccumulator Sedum plumbizincicola.
Tian G, Yang Q, Yang S, Wu L, He Y
Phytoremediation
Cadmium from industrial runoff silently accumulates in farmland soil and enters rice, vegetables, and wheat long before anyone notices — these soil microbes could become a low-cost biological tool that farmers apply to actively scrub that contamination out of the ground.
Researchers grew a succulent plant called stonecrop that has a natural talent for absorbing toxic cadmium from soil. When they added two types of beneficial soil microbes — fungi that colonize roots and bacteria that release locked-up nutrients — the plant grew nearly twice as large and soaked up dramatically more cadmium than untreated plants. The microbes worked by making the soil more acidic around the roots, which freed up more cadmium for the plant to absorb, and also switched on the plant's own internal detox genes to handle the extra load safely.
Key Findings
Co-inoculation with both microbes increased shoot and root biomass by 79% and 46%, respectively, compared to untreated controls.
The combination treatment raised the concentration of plant-available cadmium in the soil by 250%, and cadmium accumulation in shoots rose by 182%.
Co-inoculation upregulated three cadmium detoxification genes (SpMT2, SepPCS, SpHIPP45) by 6–9%, enabling the plant to safely handle the increased cadmium uptake.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Adding two common soil microbes — mycorrhizal fungi and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria — together to contaminated soil dramatically boosted a heavy-metal-absorbing plant's ability to pull toxic cadmium out of farmland, more than doubling cadmium levels in the plant's shoots.
Abstract Preview
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) are commonly found in cadmium (Cd)-contaminated soils and have the potential to enhance phytoremediation. However, the s...
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Sedum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, members of which are commonly known as stonecrops. The genus has been described as containing up to 600 species, subsequently reduced to 400–500. They are leaf succulents found primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, but extendi...