Generation of Mercury-Hyperaccumulating Plants through Transgenic Expression of the Bacterial Mercury Membrane Transport Protein MerC

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Yoshito Sasaki ; Takahiko Hayakawa ; Chihiro Inoue ; Atsushi Miyazaki ; Simon Silver and Tomonobu Kusano
• 关键词：Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans ; Arabidopsis ; MerC ; Mercury transporter ; Phytoremediation ; Tobacco
• 刊名：Transgenic Research
• 出版年：2006
• 出版时间：October, 2006
• 年：2006
• 卷：15
• 期：5
• 页码：615-625
• 全文大小：456 KB

文摘

The merC gene from Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans functions as a mercury uptake pump. MerC protein localizes in the cytoplasmic membrane of plant cells. When Arabidopsis thaliana and tobacco plants were transformed with the merC gene under the control of the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter, the resulting overexpression of merC rendered the host plants hypersensitive to Hg2+ and they accumulated approximately twice as much Hg2+ ion as the wild type plants. Thus, bacterial mercuric ion transporters such as MerC may be useful molecular tools for producing transgenic plants that hyperaccumulate Hg2+ ion.