A review on morpho-physiological traits of plants under phthalates stress and insights into their uptake and translocation

Phthalates are synthetic chemical compounds that are primarily used as plasticizers in various plastics and polymers to improve their physical properties. They are reported as ubiquitous pollutants in different spheres of the environment due to the presence of physical bonding with the polymeric matrix. In animals, including humans, they are known to cause various toxic effects. Nevertheless, less attention has been paid to phthalate induced stress in plants, since plants are equally vulnerable to their exposure as they are immobile and being an important component of the environment cannot be ignored. Moreover, due to their frequent detection in higher amounts in agricultural soils globally, significant concern has been raised about phthalate induced stress in plants over the past decade. The main sources of phthalate in agricultural soils are the use of plastic mulching, irrigation with wastewater, pesticide spraying, use of biosolids for improving soil properties, etc. From the soils, phthalates could enter into plants mainly via roots and undergo biomagnification at different trophic levels in an ecosystem. Phthalates were declared as endocrine disruptors thereby, their accumulation in edible plants raises food security concerns. Moreover, the accumulation of phthalates in plants is observed to affect germination, growth and development as well as reported to interfere with normal plant metabolism which led to modulations in the content of pigments, osmolytes, stress biomarkers and activities of antioxidative enzymes, thus reducing the yield and quality of edible plants.