The effect of metal interactions on phytochelatin production by marine phytoplankton has received little attention but yet is critical to understanding the biochemical production of this potentially important metal-binding ligand in the field. Cd, Cu, and Zn additions were made singly and in combination to three species of laboratory cultures and to a natural algal assemblage from pristine coas...

An allelic series of cad1, cadmium-sensitive mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana, was isolated. These mutants were sensitive to cadmium to different extents and were deficient in their ability to form cadmium-peptide complexes as detected by gel-filtration chromatography. Each mutant was deficient in its ability to accumulate phytochelatins (PCs) as detected by high-performance liquid chromatograph...

Microalgae are aquatic organisms possessing molecular mechanisms that allow them to discriminate non-essential heavy metals from those essential ones for their growth. The different detoxification processes executed by algae are reviewed with special emphasis on those involving the peptides metallothioneins, mainly the post transcriptionally synthesized class III metallothioneins or phytochelat...

To evaluate plant response to Hg stress, glutathione, phytochelatins, and their Hg complexes were analyzed using HPLC with amperometric detection in samples of Asparagus acutifolius grown in the Almadén mining district (Ciudad Real, Spain), one of the most Hg-contaminated sites in the world. Soils of the Almadén mining district, and specifically from the Almadenejos zone, are highly contaminate...

The heavy metal cadmium (Cd) is highly toxic to plants. To understand the mechanisms of tolerance and resistance to Cd, we treated the rootless, submerged macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum L. with sub-micromolar concentrations of Cd under environmentally relevant conditions. X-ray fluorescence measurements revealed changing distribution patterns of Cd and Zn at non-toxic (0.2 nM, 2 nM), moderat...

Arsenic (As) pollution, which is on the increase around the world, poses a growing threat to the environment. Phytoremediation, an important green technology, uses different strategies, including As uptake, transport, translocation, and detoxification, to remediate this metalloid. Arsenic hyperaccumulator plants have developed various strategies to accumulate and tolerate high concentrations of...

Two cell lines of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill cv VFNT-Cherry) were systematically compared for their capacity to tolerate cadmium. Unselected CdS cells died in the presence of 0.3 mM CdCl2. CdR6-0 cells, which were selected from CdS, survived and grew in medium supplemented with 0.3 mM CdCl2. Growth of CdR6-0 cells under this condition was accompanied by synthesis of cadmium-binding ph...

Plants respond to heavy-metal toxicity via a number of mechanisms. One such mechanism involves the chelation of heavy metals by a family of peptide ligands, the phytochelatins. Molecular genetic approaches have resulted in important advances in our understanding of phytochelatin biosynthesis. In particular, genes encoding the enzyme phytochelatin synthase have been isolated from plant and yeast...