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ARTICLE |
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Background:
Heavy metal-induced pollution of water bodies has emerged out as a
major environmental menace for the modern world in the twenty first
century. Many industrial waste waters contain heavy metals including
Chromium, which plays a major role in polluting our water and
agricultural sustainability in the long run. Due to heavy anthropogenic
manoeuvres chromium is released as a waste product from various
industries such as electroplating, battery and smelters, leather
tanning, textile printing etc. The compounds of Chromium have been
known to be strong carcinogens and mutagens that can reach the target
organs of human through drinking water and agricultural crops. Chromium
is often admixed with industrial effluents that are used for
irrigation.
Purpose: The uptake of excess
concentrations of heavy metals through this effluent irrigation
adversely affects plant growth and development. The alternation in
plant growth is correlated with the disruption of the physiological
disturbances and genotoxicity in plant cell.
Results: After the exposure to
chromium at five concentrations (12.5, 10, 7.5, 5, and 2.5 mM)
respectively the seed germination was adversely affected along with
root length inhibition. At higher doses (5 mM onwards) chromium
exhibited nucleolar disintegration (by AgNOR protein leaching). In
germinating root tip cells above suboptimal concentration (2.5 mM)
chromium stands out as potential Phyto-genotoxicant with other toxic
effects i.e., lipid peroxidation, electrolyte leakage due to membrane
disruption, ROS generation (histological staining of hydroxyl and
superoxide radical generation) root cell apoptosis (by Evans blue
staining) and disruption of root metabolic activity by inhibition of
dehydrogenase activity (by 2,3,5-Triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC)
staining methods).
Conclusion: These observations
constitute a warning signal about the risks of the widespread and
increasing presence of chromium into environment especially in
agricultural point of view which demands a high throughput evaluation
of chromium for its effects on other organisms, even on human health,
due to large use of chromium compounds in different gadgets. Lathyrus
sativus L. is an excellent model plant for the study of environmental
ecotoxicology of different genotoxicants.
Implication: Regulatory monitoring and assessment of plant health is
necessary for the better understanding of mechanism of action of
chromium and to reduce Cr contamination through seeds and the resultant
vital genome loss is cash crops.
