Knockout of TpNRAMP5 reduces grain cadmium concentration in Polish wheat

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1673852726001530?pes=vor&utm_source=clarivate&getft_integrator=clarivate

Journal of Genetics and Genomics，Available online 4 May 2026

Yiran Cheng 1, Xing Chen 1, Hongzhu Zhou 1, Jian Ma, Rui Wang, Yongjun Dong, Xi Li, Dan Long, Jian Zeng, Xing Fan, Houyang Kang, Dandan Wu, Yonghong Zhou, Ke Wang, Yi Wang

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic heavy metal for all organisms. In China, parts of arable soils in wheat-producing regions are contaminated by Cd (Shang et al., 2019), and wheat tends to accumulate elevated levels of Cd in its grains when grown in Cd-contaminated soil (Cheng et al., 2025a). Consequently, approximately 25.8% of wheat grains in China exceed safe Cd limits, posing a human health risk (Wang et al., 2023). Therefore, reducing Cd concentration in wheat grains is urgently needed to ensure food safety and public health. Grain Cd concentration is mainly controlled by genetic factors (Cheng et al., 2024), and several metal transporters such as NRAMP3, NRAMP5, IRT1, ZIP3, and HMA2 have been revealed to possess Cd transport activity (Tan et al., 2013; Peng et al., 2018a, 2018b; Cheng et al., 2025a, 2025b; Chen et al., 2026). However, their detailed functions in regulating grain Cd concentration remain to be fully characterized............