Quantification of Traffic Pollution-Derived Toxic Heavy Metals and Their Impact on DNA Methylation in Solanum tuberosum L.

Along with increasing population growth daily as well as vehicles, the blessing emanating from vehicles emissions and dust transmission into nature and become an air pollution. Which has a negative effect in various forms when coming in contact with growing crops along the road. The multi-abiotic agents are involved in air contamination. Transportation-related air pollution has become a potentially fatal issue. The main focus of this research is the impact of possibly toxic heavy metal pollutants from vehicle emissions on the DNA methylation status quality in crops. A comparative analysis of the levels of possibly harmful toxic heavy metal concentrations (ppm) in the crop was carried out. The sites of the very high dusting traffic road, high dusting traffic road 500 meters distance, low dust traffic road 1000 meters distance, and control 1500 meters distance were chosen. The possibly harmful toxic heavy metal concentrations (ppm) evaluated were lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), nickel (Ni), zinc (Zn), arsenic (As), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), and zinc (Ni). Possibly harmful toxic heavy metal concentrations (ppm) and DNA methylation P values of 0.01, 0.002, 0.0001, and 0.0003 were found using statistical analysis of plant part and soil samples (P < 0.05 is considered significant, highly significant, and very highly significant). At the molecular level, DNA methylation acts as a biomarker for environmental contamination. Abiotic stress may be indicated by alterations in epigenetics. Gaining a thorough understanding of the research may help us build genetic tools to increase crop stress resistance and advance molecular plant breeding.