ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1636755
This article is part of the Research TopicPlant Stress Resistance: Unraveling the Mechanisms and Strategies for ResilienceView all 16 articles
Nanomagnesium promotes moso bamboo tolerance to cadmium toxicity: Insights from photosynthesis phenomics, oxidative metabolism, and cellular adjustments
Provisionally accepted
Aamir Mehmood Shah1
Zaid Ulhassan2
Yi Peng1
Cong Ma1
Xinyu Du1
Muhammad Iftikhar1
Mohamed Sheteiwy3
Ali El-Keblawy4
Di Li1
Qibin Chen1*
Shiliang Liu1*- 1Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
- 2Hainan University, Haikou, China
- 3United Arab Emirates University, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
- 4University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
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Cadmium (Cd) stress severely hampers plant growth in forest ecosystems. Although magnesium oxide nanoparticles (MgONPs) are known to reduce Cd toxicity in numerous plant species, their detoxification mechanisms in Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) remain unexplored. The present study investigates how MgONPs mitigate the Cd-induced phytotoxic effects in P. edulis by examining morpho-physiological and cellular oxidative repair mechanisms. Results revealed that MgONPs diminished the oxidative stress by reducing hydrogen peroxide (26/21%), superoxide radical (29/23%), and malondialdehyde (25/20%) contents in leaves/roots under Cd stress. Moreover, MgONPs improved the photosynthetic performance as revealed by higher chlorophyll and gas exchange levels, correlated with better growth and biomass, under Cd stress. Interestingly, MgONPs improved the plant defense by escalating the activities of antioxidant enzymes (ascorbate peroxidase, catalase, and superoxide dismutase) and metabolites (total phenolics, flavonoids, tocopherols) accumulation. Importantly, anatomical analyses verified MgONPs’ role in repairing Cd-induced distortion to stomatal aperture, guard cells integrity and ultrastructural damages. These outcomes demonstrate the MgONPs application greatly enhanced the bamboo tolerance to Cd toxicity by simultaneously regulating the photosynthetic efficiency, multiple antioxidant defense mechanisms, recovering cell damages, and restricting Cd-accumulation. This study provides bamboo-specific mechanistic insights in advancing the understanding of nanoparticles assisted phytoremediation in woody perennials.
Keywords: MgONPs, Nanotechnology, Moso bamboo tolerance, Metal stress, Cadmium
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shah, Ulhassan, Peng, Ma, Du, Iftikhar, Sheteiwy, El-Keblawy, Li, Chen and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Qibin Chen, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Shiliang Liu, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
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