Plant Physiol. Drug Metab Dispos
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Published on June 11, 2008; 10.1104/pp.108.119719

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Received March 24, 2008
Accepted June 5, 2008

Investigation of Heavy Metal Hyperaccumulation at the Cellular Level: Development and Characterization of Thlaspi caerulescens Suspension Cell Lines

Melinda A. Klein , Hitoshi Sekimoto , Matthew J. Milner , and Leon V. Kochian *

U.S. Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853

* Corresponding author; email: lvk1{at}cornell.edu.

The ability of Thlaspi caerulescens, a Zn/Cd hyperaccumulator, to accumulate extremely high foliar concentrations of toxic heavy metals requires coordination of uptake, transport and sequestration to avoid damage to the photosynthetic machinery. The study of these metal hyperaccumulation processes at the cellular level in T. caerulescens has been hampered by the lack of a cellular system that mimics the whole plant, is easily transformable, and competent for longer term studies. Therefore, to better understand the contribution of the cellular physiology and molecular biology to Zn/Cd hyperaccumulation in the intact plant, T. caerulescens suspension cell lines were developed. Differences in cellular metal tolerance and accumulation between the cell lines of T. caerulescens and the related non-hyperaccumulator, Arabidopsis thaliana, were examined. A number of Zn/Cd transport-related differences between T. caerulescens and Arabidopsis cell lines were identified that also are seen in the whole plant. T. caerulescens suspension cell lines exhibited: 1) higher growth requirements for Zn; 2) much greater zinc and cadmium tolerance; 3) enhanced expression of specific metal transport-related genes; and, 4) significant differences in metal fluxes compared with Arabidopsis. One interesting feature exhibited by the T. caerulescens cell lines was that they accumulated less Zn and Cd than the Arabidopsis cell lines, most likely due to a greater metal efflux. This finding suggests that the T. caerulescens suspension cells represent cells of the Zn/Cd transport pathway between the root epidermis and leaf. We also show it is possible to stably transform T. caerulescens suspension cells, which will allow us to alter the expression of candidate hyperaccumulation genes and thus dissect the molecular and physiological processes underlying metal hyperaccumulation in T. caerulescens.






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