Application of two- and multiway chemometric strategies for describing elementomic changes in pepper plants exposed to cadmium stress by multielement determination

The objective of this work was to evaluate elemental changes in pepper exposed to Cd stress through different chemometric tools. For this purpose, pepper plants were grown under five different treatments with different Cd concentrations in the nutrient solution. Considering the hypothesis that pepper plants exposed to Cd stress during growth undergo changes in the macro- and microelemental distribution in leaves, stems, and roots, principal component analysis (PCA) and parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis were applied to compare bidirectional and multivariate chemometric strategies to assess elemental changes in pepper plants. Since the number of variables and the data generated were large and complex, the application of chemometric tools was justified to facilitate the visualization and interpretation of results. The mineral composition, namely the Ca, Cd, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, N, and P contents, was assessed in 180 samples of leaves, stems, and roots of the cultivated peppers. Then, PCA and PARAFAC analysis were applied to compare bidirectional and multivariate chemometric strategies to assess elemental changes throughout pepper plants. The visualization of the trend om each sample and their intrinsic relationship with the variables were possible with the application of PCA. The use of PARAFAC analysis permitted the simultaneous study of all samples in a straightforward representation of the information that facilitated a quick and comprehensive understanding of the spatial dist...

Source: Chemosphere - August 22, 2023 Category: Chemistry Authors: Marcos de O Ribeiro Claudia B de Abreu Cindy S Pinho Lucas de O Ribeiro Andr é D de A Neto Leonardo S G Teixeira Silvana M Azcarate Fabio de S Dias Source Type: research