Gümrükçüoğlu, AbidinAltuntaş, CansuYetişsin, FuatDemiralay, Mehmet2026-07-172026-07-172025https://hdl.handle.net/11494/6346Cadmium (Cd) stress disrupts nutrient and elemental homeostasis in plants, thereby inhibiting growth and threatening food safety. Exogenous treatments can mitigate the adverse effects of Cd while enhancing the uptake of essential nutrients from the soil. Although the newly synthesized antioxidant naphthalen-1-yl 2, 4, 6-trimethylbenzenesulfonate (NTB) has demonstrated high free-radical–scavenging capacity in abiotic stress tolerance, studies of its effects remain limited; moreover, no research has examined NTB’s impact on the elemental composition of plants under Cd stress. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate for the first time NTB’s potential to improve micronutrient efficiency and restore elemental homeostasis by assessing its influence on nutrient uptake and elemental balance in maize seedlings exposed to Cd stress. Three-week-old seedlings were pretreated with 0.25 mM NTB and then subjected to 100 μM Cd stress. Compared to Cd-stress, NTB+Cd treatment increased manganese (Mn) content by 85.4%, zinc (Zn) content by 43%, iron (Fe) content by 10.4% and copper (Cu) by 14.5%. Elemental analysis revealed that, NTB+Cd treatment exhibited a 5.5% increase in carbon (C) content and a 3% increase in hydrogen (H) content, alongside a 7.5% decrease in nitrogen (N) content; these shifts raised the C: N ratio by 12.7% and lowered the H: C ratio by 2.8% compared to the Cd stress. Notably, S content was detected only in NTB-treated seedlings, reaching 2.4% in the NTB-only treatment and 2.7% in the NTB+Cd. These findings demonstrate that 0.25 mM NTB treatment can effectively alleviate Cd toxicity by enhancing micronutrient uptake and restoring elemental balance.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessCadmium stressElemental statusMaizeMicronutrientNaphthalen-1-yl 246-trimethyl benzenesulfonateArticle7325025610.51435/turkjac.1673423