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ARTICLE

Subcellular Distribution and Chemical Forms of Cadmium in the Medicine Food Homology Plant Platycodon grandiflorum (Jacq.) A.DC.

Jia An^#, Xiang Wang^#, Yajiang Jing, Jianping Huang, Qilong Wang, Gang Zhang, Jing Gao, Liang Peng, Wenli Huang^*, Yonggang Yan^*

College of Pharmacy, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang, 712046, China

* Corresponding Authors: Wenli Huang. Email: ; Yonggang Yan. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Development of New Sensing Technology in Sustainable Farming and Smart Environmental Monitoring)

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2023, 92(5), 1405-1420. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2023.026525

Received 10 September 2022; Accepted 28 November 2022; Issue published 09 March 2023

Abstract

Although Platycodon grandiflorum (Jacq.) A.DC. is a renowned medicine food homology plant, reports of excessive cadmium (Cd) levels are common, which affects its safety for clinical use and food consumption. To enable its Cd levels to be regulated or reduced, it is necessary to first elucidate the mechanism of Cd uptake and accumulation in the plant, in addition to its detoxification mechanisms. This present study used inductively couple plasma-mass-spectrometry to analyze the subcellular distribution and chemical forms of Cd in different tissues of P. grandiflorum. The experimental results showed that Cd was mainly accumulated in the roots [predominantly in the cell wall (50.96%–61.42%)], and it was found primarily in hypomobile and hypotoxic forms. The proportion of Cd in the soluble fraction increased after Cd exposure, and the proportion of insoluble phosphate Cd and oxalate Cd increased in roots and leaves, with a higher increase in oxalate Cd. Therefore, it is likely that root retention mechanisms, cell wall deposition, vacuole sequestration, and the formation of low mobility and low toxicity forms are tolerance strategies for Cd detoxification used by P. grandiflorum. The results of this study provide a theoretical grounding for the study of Cd accumulation and detoxification mechanisms in P. grandiflorum, and they can be used as a reference for developing Cd limits and standards for other medicine food homology plants.

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material File

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