Fig. 4: The hyperaccumulating mechanism of O. rosea for PFAS.
a PFOA concentrations in the root and shoot of O. rosea and the corresponding TF for the non-hyperaccumulating (NOR) and hyperaccumulating populations (HOR) after cultivation in a 200 ng/mL PFOA nutrient solution for 7 days; the reported values have subtracted the inherent PFOA accumulated by HOR and NOR in their original environment. b Concentrations of uronic acid and total sugar in the root cell of NOR and HOR to represent changes in pectin and hemicellulose (HC) levels after cultivation of PFOA compared to the control blank (CK). The p values from independent t-test (two-tailed, no adjustments) are shown above paired columns. For pectin uronic acid concentrations between different treatments: p = 0.016 for NOR_CK vs. NOR_PFOA, p = 0.012 for NOR_PFOA vs. HOR_PFOA; for HC1 total sugar concentrations between different treatments: p = 0.011 for NOR_CK vs. NOR_PFOA, p = 0.013 for NOR_PFOA vs. HOR_PFOA; for HC2 total sugar concentrations between different treatments: p = 0.006 for NOR_CK vs. HOR_CK. c Number of up- and down-regulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in NOR and HOR roots under PFOA treatment compared to CK (NOR_PFOA vs. NOR_CK and HOR_PFOA vs. HOR_CK); and the comparison between NOR and HOR (NOR_PFOA vs. HOR_PFOA). d The top 30 processes identified by GO analysis using the upregulated DEGs in NOR roots compared to HOR, with the gene counts provided in parentheses. e The top 30 enriched pathways identified by KEGG analysis in NOR roots compared to HOR, with the 7 pathways involved in root cell wall synthesis shaded in purple. f The proposed cell wall pectin and hemicellulose biosynthesis pathways in plant roots, with the expression levels of each unigene encoding the enzymes involved in each step. Colors represent the value of log2TPM from three replicates. The p values were obtained through statistical testing using a generalized linear model based on the negative binomial distribution (DESeq2), followed by multiple comparison correction. A significance threshold of *p < 0.05 was applied, with specific p values and detailed gene descriptions are provided in Supplementary Table 17. Data in (a, b) are represented as mean ± SD of biological replicates (n = 3). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
