Enhancing bread wheat resilience to cadmium and drought stress: insights from physiological, morphological, and transcriptomic responses to biochar and 24-epibrassinolide application

作者：Fasih Ullah Haider, Noor Ul Ain, Kadambot H. M. Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Yuelin Li · 发表于：Biochar · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1007/s42773-025-00457-z · 被引用次数：19 · 研究领域：Crop Yield and Soil Fertility、Heavy metals in environment、Plant Micronutrient Interactions and Effects

Abstract Drought and cadmium (Cd) stress threaten sustainable crop production, highlighting the need for resilent agricultural practices. Individual application of biochar (BC) and brassinosteroids (24-epibrassinolide; EBL) can mitigate drought and Cd stress. However, their synergistic effects on alleviating drought and Cd stress at transcriptomic level in wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) remain underexplored. This study investigated the combined impact of BC (B 0 = 0% w/w and B 1 = 5% w/w) and EBL (H 0 = control and H 1 = 10 –6 M) on wheat physiology, biomass, and digital gene expression under Cd (30 ppm) and drought stress (D 0 = 75% water holding capacity (WHC) and D 1 = 35% WHC). Drought and Cd stress significantly reduced biomass and photosynthetic activity while increasing oxidative stress and Cd uptake. However, the combined application of BC and EBL treatments showed notable improvements: root fresh biomass, leaf area, and shoot fresh biomass were increased by 39.41%, 66.49%, and 78.25% under D 0 and by 48.24%, 63.76%, and 73.49% under D 1 , respectively, compared to the control. Moreover, Cd uptake by wheat leaves decreased by 71.42% under D 0 and 184.10% under D 1 with BC and EBL combined application. Transcriptome analysis identified 6,174 differentially expressed genes linked to detoxification, carbon and nitrogen metabolism, and stress responses. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses highlighted metabolic processes and catalyt...