pollution
Pollution refers to the introduction of harmful contaminants—including heavy metals, air pollutants, pesticides, and excess nutrients—into environments where plants grow and develop. These contaminants can disrupt plant physiology by interfering with photosynthesis, nutrient uptake, and cellular processes, ultimately affecting growth, reproduction, and survival. Understanding how plants respond to and tolerate pollution is critical for developing phytoremediation strategies and breeding stress-resistant crops for increasingly contaminated agricultural and natural landscapes.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-05-06
Antibiotics flushed from farms, hospitals, and homes are building up in soils and waterways, breeding drug-resistant bacteria and destabilizing ecosystems. Researchers review how engineered nanoparticles can chemically break down these antibiotic residues before they spread further damage.
Antibiotic accumulation disrupts soil microbial community structure and impairs nutrient cycling processes, directly reducing soil fertility
Resistance genes and resistant bacteria spread through both vertical and horizontal gene transfer, amplifying the threat across ecosystems and into human health
Nanomaterials show promise for antibiotic degradation due to tunable surface properties and high surface-area-to-volume ratios, but existing studies remain fragmented without a unified comparative framework