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ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND ADAPTATION

Functional Expression of a Bacterial Heavy Metal Transporter in Arabidopsis Enhances Resistance to and Decreases Uptake of Heavy Metals^1,[w]

National Research Laboratory of Phytoremediation, Division of Molecular Life Sciences (J.L., H.B., J.J., J.-Y.L., Y.-Y.Y., E.M., Y.L.), and Center for Plant Intracellular Trafficking (I.H.), Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 790–784, Korea; and Institut für Pflanzenbiologie, Universität Zürich, Zollikerstrasse 107, 8008 Zürich, Switzerland (E.M.)

Large parts of agricultural soil are contaminated with lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd). Although most environments are not heavily contaminated, the low levels observed nonetheless pose a high risk of heavy metal accumulation in the food chain. Therefore, approaches to develop plants with reduced heavy metal uptake are important. Recently, many transgenic plants with increased heavy metal resistance and uptake of heavy metals were developed for the purpose of phytoremediation. However, to reduce heavy metal in the food chain, plants that transfer less heavy metals to the shoot are required. We tested whether an Escherichia coli gene, ZntA, which encodes a Pb(II)/Cd(II)/Zn(II) pump, could be useful for developing plants with reduced heavy metal content. Yeast cells transformed with this gene had improved resistance to Pb(II) and Cd(II). In Arabidopsis plants transformed with ZntA, ZntA was localized at the plasma membrane and improved the resistance of the plants to Pb(II) and Cd(II). The shoots of the transgenic plants had decreased Pb and Cd content. Moreover, the transgenic protoplasts showed lower accumulation of Cd and faster release of preloaded Cd than wild-type protoplasts. These results show that a bacterial transporter gene, ZntA, can be functionally expressed in plant cells, and that that it may be useful for the development of crop plants that are safe from heavy metal contamination.

¹ This work was supported by Pohang Iron and Steel Company, by the National Research Laboratory program and the Israel-Korea collaborative research program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Korea (to Y.L.), by the Körber Stiftung (to E.M.), and by the Creative Research Initiative Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of Korea (grant no. M10116000005–02F0000–00310 to I.H.).

^[w] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

^* Corresponding author; e-mail ylee{at}postech.ac.kr; fax 82–54–279–2199.

Received February 10, 2003; returned for revision April 21, 2003; accepted June 20, 2003.

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