Plant growth can be inhibited by herbicides and is strongly limited by the availability of nutrients, which can influence human health through the food chain. Until now, however, cross talk between the enantioselectivity of herbicides and nutrient stresses has been poorly understood. We analyzed trace element and macroelement contents in shoots of Arabidopsis thaliana treated by the chiral herbicide imazethapyr (IM) and observed that multiple-nutrient stress (trace elements Mn, Cu, and Fe and macroelements P, K, Ca, and Mg) was enantioselective. The (R)-IM treatments resulted in Mn 23.37%, Cu 63.53%, P 30.61%, K 63.70%, Ca 34.32%, and Mg 36.14% decreases compared with the control. Interestingly, it was also found that herbicidally active (R)-IM induced notable aggregation of nutrient elements in leaves and roots compared with the control and (S)-IM. Through gene expression analyses, it was found that herbicidally active (R)-IM induced the up- or down-regulation of genes involved in the transport of nutrient elements. We propose that (R)-IM affected the uptake and translocation of nutrient elements in A. thaliana, which destroyed the balance of nutrient elements in the plant. This finding reminds us to reconsider the effect of nutrient stresses in risk assessment of herbicides.

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The toxic effects of Cu (II) on the freshwater green algae Chlorella vulgaris and its chloroplast were investigated by detecting the responses of photosynthesis and oxidant stress. The results showed that Cu (II) arrested the growth of C. vulgaris and presented in a concentration- and time-dependent trend and the SRichards 2 model fitted the inhibition curve best. The chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, including qP, Y (II), ETR, F v /F m , and F v /F 0, were stimulated at low concentration of Cu (II) but declined at high concentration, indicating the photosystem II (PSII) of C. vulgaris was destroyed by Cu (II). The chloroplasts were extracted, and the Hill reaction activity (HRA) of chloroplast was significantly decreased with the increasing Cu (II) concentration under both illuminating and dark condition, and faster decline speed was observed under dark condition. Activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA) content were also significantly decreased at high concentration Cu (II), companied with a large number of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. All these results indicated a severe oxidative stress on algal cells occurred as well as the effect on photosynthesis, thus inhibiting the growth of algae, which providing sights to evaluate the phytotoxicity of Cu (II).

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