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Effects of uranium stress on physiological and biochemical characteristics in seedlings of six common edible vegetables

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Abstract

The large-scale exploitation of uranium (U) not only causes radioactive pollution to the soil, but also has a great adverse effect on human health. However, the current understanding of the effects of U stress on organisms is not deep enough. As food sources of human beings, vegetables can enrich U into the human body along the food chain. Therefore, the effects of soil U on seed germination, seedling growth and physiological and biochemical characteristics of six common edible vegetables (tomato, cucumber, kohlrabi, radish, cabbage, and spinach) were investigated. The results show that the toxicity of U to the six vegetables in sandy loam is cucumber > radish > spinach > cabbage > tomato > kohlrabi. The lower U concentration in sandy loam has certain promoting effect on seed germination and root growth. The accumulation and tolerance capacity of cucumber and radish to U in sandy loam is stronger than that of other four vegetables, which may be used as candidate species for biological treatment of U pollution. These results provide theoretical basis for clarifying the biological effects and toxicological mechanism of U pollution, and also provide theoretical basis for scientific prevention and control of soil U pollution.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from NSFC (21607043; 21577032), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2016ZZD06, JB2015001), the Open Project of Key Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology, CAS (Grant No kf2016009) are acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China

    Jing Hou, Chunjie Wang, Yue Zhou & Xiangke Wang

  2. Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China

    Shiguo Li

  3. NAAM Research Group, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia

    Tasawar Hayat & Ahmed Alsaedi

Authors
  1. Jing Hou
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  2. Chunjie Wang
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  3. Yue Zhou
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  4. Shiguo Li
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  5. Tasawar Hayat
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  6. Ahmed Alsaedi
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  7. Xiangke Wang
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Correspondence to Shiguo Li or Xiangke Wang.

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Hou, J., Wang, C., Zhou, Y. et al. Effects of uranium stress on physiological and biochemical characteristics in seedlings of six common edible vegetables. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 316, 1001–1010 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5792-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5792-6

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