Toxicity of Heavy Metals and Their Molecular Detection on Phaseolus vulgaris (L.)

Phaseolus vulgaris represents a great source of nutrit io n fo r millions of people, and is the second most important legume crop, after soybean. Assessment of environmental contamination on e cology (plant) at molecular and population levels is important in risk quantification and remediation s tud y . Heavy metal toxicity in plants is to induce o xidative s tress linked to oxidation of proteins and membrane lipids but also to alterations of DNA damage re s p o n s e . W e s tudied the toxicity of Al and Ni individually on P. vulgaris which affected root and shoot length and their effec t s on length was appeared after 3 days of germination but % germination was not inhibited in both metal treatments . A mo n g a ll tes ted concentrations of Ni and Al in pot experiment, the concentration 150 mg/Kg of soil g e nerated severely effects on plant height, leaf area per plant, fresh and dry weight per plant respectively. Despite of plant growth reduction, t h e g e n o toxicity produced by the s e me t a ls was assessed by RAPD marker in all treated plants and compared from untreated plants . Out of 10 primers used, 5 gave monomorph ic, 4 gave unique band, and remaining one did not amplify the genomic DNA, and thus this technique was u s e fu l in evaluation of genotoxicity produced by these heavy metals . Our present s tudy shows the environmental risk of these heavy metals on g ro wt h a n d DNA polymorphism of P.