Abstract
Boron (B) has previously been shown to inhibit cadmium (Cd) uptake in wheat. Here, we investigated the physiological response of external B application (C for no B added, B for B added, B+Cd for B and Cd added, B/Cd for B 24 h pretreatment before Cd added, B and Cd were 46.2 μM and 5 μM, respectively) on wheat growth under Cd stress. The results showed that the wheat growth was significantly weaker under Cd treatment, while B application did not significantly improve the wheat growth under Cd stress. However, B application decreased Cd concentrations and malondialdehyde (MDA) concentrations of shoot and root. The key enzyme activities including superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) significantly increased under Cd treatments while decreased under B treatments. Further, a total of 198, 680 and 204 of the differential metabolites were isolated between B and C treatment, Cd and C treatment and B+Cd and Cd treatment, respectively. The metabolites with up-accumulation in B application (B+Cd) roots were mainly galactaric acid, citric acid, N6-galacturonyl-L-lysine, D-glucose, while the metabolites with down-accumulation were mainly threoninyl-tryptophan and C16 sphinganine. The differential metabolic pathways were mainly concentrated in linoleic acid metabolism, galactose metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, propanoate metabolism in diabetic complications between B+Cd treatment and B treatment. The results indicate that B alleviates Cd toxicity in winter wheat by inhibiting Cd uptake, increasing antioxidant enzyme activity and changing metabolites.
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This research was funded by the Chinese State Natural Science Foundation (32002128), the Scientific and Technological Key Projects of Henan Province (212102310979, 202102110213) and Key Scientific Research Project of the Higher Education Institutions of Henan Province (20A210018). We thank Shanghai Lu Ming Biotech Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China) for assistance with LC-MS metabonomics analysis.
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SQ and PZ conceived and designed the research. SQ, ZN, CL and YX perform all the experiments, supervised the study, implemented the method and performed data analysis, interpreted the data and wrote the manuscript. WG and HL supervised the study and checked the results. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
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Qin, S., Xu, Y., Nie, Z. et al. Metabolomic and antioxidant enzyme activity changes in response to cadmium stress under boron application of wheat (Triticum aestivum). Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 34701–34713 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17123-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17123-z