Phytoremediation of Mercury- and Methylmercury-Polluted Soils Using Genetically Engineered Plants

Heaton, Andrew C. P.; Rugh, Clayton L.; Wang, Nian-jie; Meagher, Richard B.

doi:10.1080/10588339891334384

Cited by 155 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Another new viewpoint towards phytoremediation is that adequate attention must be paid to the development of crop hyperaccumulators, termed by the author as "cropaccumulators", such as wheat, maize and rice [30][31][32][33]. In other words, investigations of other "noncropaccumulators" species would be of little significance in application.…”

Section: The Development Of Crop Hyperaccumulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is good for us because generally crops bear grains aboveground and the fear that heavy metals may enrich in edible part is eliminated. Another big advantage is that some microbes produce antibiotics to enhance plants immunity and some produce necessary nutrients and even plant growth hormones [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Therefore the future of this method would be bright.…”

Section: The Development Of Crop Hyperaccumulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A critical review on the bio-removal of hazardous heavy metals from contaminated soils: Issues, progress, eco-environmental concerns and opportunities

Kang

Zhang

et al. 2010

Journal of Hazardous Materials

547

182

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tMechanism of four methods for removing hazardous heavy metal are detailed and comparedchemical/physical remediation, animal remediation, phytoremediation and microremediation with emphasis on bio-removal aspects. The latter two, namely the use of plants and microbes, are preferred because of their cost-effectiveness, environmental friendliness and fewer side effects. Also the obvious disadvantages of other alternatives are listed. In the future the application of genetic engineering or cell engineering to create an expected and ideal species would become popular and necessary. However, a concomitant and latent danger of genetic pollution is realized by a few persons. To cope with this potential harm, several suggestions are put forward including choosing self-pollinated plants, creating infertile polyploid species and carefully selecting easy-controlled microbe species. Bravely, the authors point out that current investigation of noncrop hyperaccumulators is of little significance in application. Pragmatic development in the future should be crop hyperaccumulators (newly termed as "cropaccumulators") by transgenic or symbiotic approach. Considering no effective plan has been put forward by others about concrete steps of applying a hyperaccumulator to practice, the authors bring forward a set of universal procedures, which is novel, tentative and adaptive to evaluate hyperaccumulators' feasibility before large-scale commercialization.

show abstract

Section: The Development Of Crop Hyperaccumulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Development Of Crop Hyperaccumulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical review on the bio-removal of hazardous heavy metals from contaminated soils: Issues, progress, eco-environmental concerns and opportunities

Kang

Zhang

et al. 2010

Journal of Hazardous Materials

547

182

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Converting tobacco to a mercury volatilizing plant could create a multiple use crop that can be grown in mercury-contaminated soil [7]. Since tobacco is much larger than Arabidopsis, and has extensive root systems capable of extracting mercury, its potential for mercury evaporation is greater.…”

Section: +mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Plants carrying this modified merA gene can extract, sequester, and detoxify mercury pollutants [7]. The mercury volatilization trait was also introduced into yellow poplar and tobacco [7], [8]. Mercury volatilizing transgenic plants could be incorporated into new environmental remediation technologies providing a more environmental friendly, cost effective and sustainable alternative compared to chemical and physical recovery of mercury from the polluted wastes [9].…”

Section: +mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Differential mercury volatilization by tobacco organs expressing a modified bacterial merA gene

Sun

Feng

et al. 2001

Cell Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mercury pollution is a major environmental problem accompanying industrial activities. Most of the mercury released ends up and retained in the soil as complexes of the toxic ionic mercury (Hg 2+), which then can be converted by microbes into the even more toxic methylmercury which tends to bioaccumulate. Mercury detoxification of the soil can also occur by microbes converting the ionic mercury into the least toxic metallic mercury (Hg 0 ) form, which then evaporates. The remediation potential of transgenic plants carrying the MerA gene from E. coli encoding mercuric ion reductase could be evaluated.A modified version of the gene, optimized for plant codon preferences (merApe9, Rugh et al. 1996), was introduced into tobacco by Agrobacterium-mediated leaf disk transformation. Transgenic seeds were resistant to HgCl 2 at 50 μM, and some of them (10-20% ) could germinate on media containing as much as 350 μM HgCl 2 , while the control plants were fully inhibited or died on 50 μM HgCl 2. The rate of elemental mercury evolution from Hg 2+ (added as HgCl 2 ) was 5-8 times higher for transgenic plants than the control. Mercury volatilization by isolated organs standardized for fresh weight was higher (up to 5 times) in the roots than in shoots or the leaves. The data suggest that it is the root system of the transgenic plants that volatilizes most of the reduced mercury (Hg 0 ). It also suggests that much of the mercury need not enter the vascular system to be transported to the leaves for volatilization. Transgenic plants with the merApe9 gene may be used to mercury detoxification for environmental improvement in mercury-contaminated regions more efficiently than it had been predicted based on data on volatilization of whole plants via the upper parts only (Rugh et al. 1996).

show abstract

Brassicaceaeplants

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Phytoremediation of Mercury- and Methylmercury-Polluted Soils Using Genetically Engineered Plants

Cited by 155 publications

References 0 publications

A critical review on the bio-removal of hazardous heavy metals from contaminated soils: Issues, progress, eco-environmental concerns and opportunities

A critical review on the bio-removal of hazardous heavy metals from contaminated soils: Issues, progress, eco-environmental concerns and opportunities

Differential mercury volatilization by tobacco organs expressing a modified bacterial merA gene

Brassicaceaeplants

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About