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Review
. 2025 Feb;38(1):1-19.
doi: 10.1007/s10534-024-00639-5. Epub 2024 Sep 26.

Lead-induced changes in plant cell ultrastructure: an overview

Oumaima El Khattabi #  1   2   3 , Youssef Lamwati #  1   2   3   4 , Fatima Henkrar  1   2 , Blanche Collin  2   3 , Clement Levard  2   3 , Fabrice Colin  2   3 , Abdelaziz Smouni  1   2 , Mouna Fahr  5   6
Affiliations
Review

Lead-induced changes in plant cell ultrastructure: an overview

Oumaima El Khattabi et al. Biometals. 2025 Feb.

Abstract

Lead (Pb) is one of the most harmful toxic metals and causes severe damage to plants even at low concentrations. Pb inhibits plant development, reduces photosynthesis rates, and causes metabolic disfunctions. Plant cells display these alterations in the form of abnormal morphological modifications resulting from ultrastructural changes in the cell wall, plasma membrane, chloroplast, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, and nuclei. Depending on plant tolerance capacity, the ultrastructural changes could be either a sign of toxicity that limits plant development or an adaptive strategy to cope with Pb stress. This paper gathers data on Pb-induced changes in cell ultrastructure observed in many tolerant and hyperaccumulator plants and describes the ultrastructural changes that appear to be mechanisms to alleviate Pb toxicity. The different modifications caused by Pb in cell organelles are summarized and reinforced with hypotheses that provide an overview of plant responses to Pb stress and explain the physiological and morphological changes that occur in tolerant plants. These ultrastructural modifications could help assess the potential of plants for use in phytoremediation.

Keywords: Cell; Heavy metal; Lead; Organelle; Oxidative stress; Plant; Tolerance; Ultrastructure.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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