Aluminum Toxicity and Tolerance in Plants
Link: https://academic.oup.com/plphys/article/107/2/315/6068991
See the effect of aluminum toxicity on wheat roots.
Plants were grown for 4 days in 0.2 mM CaCl (pH = 4.3) with 5 µM AlCl3.
The root on the right shows considerable tissue damage due to exposure to aluminum.
This shows that aluminum is toxic to all living beings, including plants, mainly due to its bioaccumulation effect.
When choosing dental implants, be aware that there are aluminum-free implants.
Plant Physiology, Volume 107, Issue 2, February 1995, Pages 315–321, https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.107.2.315
Published: 01 February 1995
Aluminum (Al) is the most abundant metal in the earths crust, comprising about 7% of its mass. Since many plant species are sensitive to micromolar concentrations of Al, the potential for soils to be A1 toxic is considerable. Fortunately, most of the A1 is bound by ligands or occurs in other nonphytotoxic forms such as aluminosilicates and precipitates. However, solubilization of this A1 is enhanced by low pH and A1 toxicity is a major factor limiting plant production on acid soils. Soil acidification can develop naturally when basic cations are leached from soils, but it can be accelerated by some farming practices and by acid rain (Kennedy, 1986). Strategies to maintain production on these soils include the application of lime to raise the soil pH and the use of plants that are tolerant of acid soils.
The most easily recognized symptom of A1 toxicity is the inhibition of root growth, and this has become a widely accepted measure of A1 stress in plants. In simple nutrient solutions micromolar concentrations of A1 can begin to inhibit root growth within 60 min. However, the inhibition of growth per se offers little information about the causes of stress that will either precede or coincide with changes in growth. To understand the mechanisms of A1 toxicity, it is essential to identify the primary sites involved, both anatomical and metabolic, being mindful that A1 could have diverse effects and act differently in different species. Severa1 reviews on AI toxicity are available (see Haug, 1984; Taylor, 1988; Rengel, 1992a); here we limit our discussion to the sites of A1 toxicity in higher plants and to the possible role of Ca in the primary mechanism of A1 toxicity.
