Root Responses to Antimony in the Environment

Contamination of soils by toxic trace elements is a serious threat for the environment. One of these dangerous elements for plants, animals and also humans is antimony (Sb). Antimony enters the environment especially due to mining activities, ore processing and industry, traffic or shooting. Despite its non-essentiality for living organisms, plants are able to take up and accumulate this element in relatively high concentrations in their organs. It becomes phytotoxic at high levels in plant tissues, and increased levels of this element in edible plant parts or medicinal herbs may cause health risks to humans and livestock.

Root is the organ of the first contact with the toxic substances in the soil, including Sb. It is known that roots accumulate Sb several times more intensive than shoots. Antimony reduces root length although no influence or even increase in root biomass has been also observed in our previous experiments. Impact of Sb on root anatomy, especially on development of apoplasmic barriers that control the uptake of elements, as well as the effect of Sb on root aerenchyma formation has been also shown. We also observed that antimony induced oxidative stress and enhanced antioxidative enzymes activity in plant roots. Additional aspects of Sb toxicity and sites of root Sb accumulation will be discussed, too.

Acknowledgement: The work was supported by Slovak Grant Agency VEGA by grant VEGA 1/0605/17.