Phytoremediation of methylmercury pollution:
            <i>merB</i>
            expression in
            <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>
            confers resistance to organomercurials

Bizily, Scott P.; Rugh, Clayton L.; Summers, Anne O.; Meagher, Richard B.

doi:10.1073/pnas.96.12.6808

Cited by 232 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Since tobacco is a fast growing crop with large fresh mass, transgenic lines resistant to mercury could be used to remediate mercury-contaminated region with simple agrotechnology. The organomercurial lyase ( MerBpe) gene has also been introduced into tobacco [15]. The gene product converts the dangerous methylmercury and other organic mercury derivatives to ionic mercury which can then be reduced to Hg 0 by MerA [15].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Sun

Feng

et al. 2001

Cell Res

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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).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Sun

Feng

et al. 2001

Cell Res

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“…However, transgenic methods sometimes cause gene flow (the transfer of alleles of genes from one individual to another), which is latent but dangerous for a nonnative gene segment by spreading [12,13]. Several suggestions of minimizing the resulting potential gene pollution are available in this article.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

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

548

182

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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.

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“…The enzymology of processing of toxic inorganic ions has also progressed in recent years to include mercury, copper, cadmium, silver, arsenic and cobalt. This might ultimately make remediation schemes for inorganic pollutants feasible 38 . …”

Section: Enzymes In Bioremediationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Erratum: correction: Plant diversity enhances ecosystem responses to elevated CO2 and nitrogen deposition

Knops¹,

Tilman²,

Craine³

et al. 2001

Nature

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regions. Amino-acid side chains exhibiting weak electron density were built with steric and geometric constraints. We generated the ®gures with GRASP, Molscript and Raster3D. Structural comparisonsWe carried out structural comparisons against 251 Fab and 11 abTCR models. Superpositions were performed using LSQMAN 28 . The inter-domain, intra-chain angles (for instance Vg±Cg) were calculated as the supplement of the rotation angle necessary for superposition of the conserved a-carbon atoms of the B and F strands of each domain. Because the Vg±Vd interface involves the A9GFCC9C0 b-sheet whereas the Cg±Cd interface involves the ABED b-sheet (Fig. 1), V domain strands B and F were explicitly superimposed onto C domain strands F and B. The elbow angle between the V and C domains was calculated as the angle between the pseudo-dyads, described by direction cosines, which result from a superposition of V or C domains. Buried interfaces were calculated with CNS using a probe radius of 1.4 A Ê . Structures of abTCRs and Fabs are referred to by their Protein Data Bank identi®cation codes

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Phytoremediation of methylmercury pollution: merB expression in Arabidopsis thaliana confers resistance to organomercurials

Cited by 232 publications

References 32 publications

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

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

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

Erratum: correction: Plant diversity enhances ecosystem responses to elevated CO2 and nitrogen deposition

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