Varied environmental compartments (such as soil and water) potentially contaminated with different metals/metalloids can impact the health of both plants and animals/ humans. Trace amounts of Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni and Zn are beneficial for higher plants, whereas, Cr, Cu, Co, Mn, Mo, Se, V and Zn are known as the micronutrient metal/metal‐ loids for animals/humans. However, elevated levels of the metal...

Penicillium brevicompactum highly tolerated cobalt concentrations of 50, 200, 800 and 1000 ppm both through cell wall and intracellular sequestration- immobilization of the metal on/within the cell wall, cell wall thickness, presence of electron-dense deposits inside vacuoles (thiol peptides sequestering cobalt) and in the cytoplasm (cobalt), and presence of matrixed electron-dense deposits, on...

Certain plant species and genotypes are able to accumulate large quantities of heavy metals in their shoots. Based on this trait the concept of phytoremediation was developed, i.e. the use of metal hyperaccumulating plants for the cleansing of contaminated soils and water. In order to more efficiently use this capacity, an engineering of plants might be needed. However, very little is known abo...

Toxic effects of cadmium (Cd), a common soil pollutant, are still not very well understood, particularly in regard to its epigenetic impact. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess DNA methylation changes and their persistence in the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris upon chronic low dose Cd exposure using methylation sensitive amplification polymorphism (MSAP). Moreover, the biomarker resp...