Recent strategies of increasing metal tolerance and phytoremediation potential using genetic transformation of plants

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Abstract

Avoidance and reduction of soil contamination with heavy metals is one of the most serious global challenges. Nowadays, science offers us new opportunities of utilizing plants to extract toxic elements from the soil by means of phytoremediation. Plant abilities to uptake, translocate, and transform heavy metals, as well as to limit their toxicity, may be significantly enhanced via genetic engineering. This paper provides a comprehensive review of recent strategies aimed at the improvement of plant phytoremediation potential using plant transformation and employing current achievements in nuclear and cytoplasmic genome transformation. Strategies for obtaining plants suitable for effective soil clean-up and tolerant to excessive concentrations of heavy metals are critically assessed. Promising directions in genetic manipulations, such as gene silencing and cis- and intragenesis, are also discussed. Moreover, the ways of overcoming disadvantages of phytoremediation using genetic transformation approachare proposed. The knowledge gathered here could be useful for designing new research aimed at biotechnological improvement of phytoremediation efficiency.

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Emerging pollutants in the environment: present and future challenges in biomonitoring, ecological risks and bioremediation.

Katerina Demnerova, Maria Gavrilescu, Fabio Fava … (2015)

Emerging pollutants reach the environment from various anthropogenic sources and are distributed throughout environmental matrices. Although great advances have been made in the detection and analysis of trace pollutants during recent decades, due to the continued development and refinement of specific techniques, a wide array of undetected contaminants of emerging environmental concern need to be identified and quantified in various environmental components and biological tissues. These pollutants may be mobile and persistent in air, water, soil, sediments and ecological receptors even at low concentrations. Robust data on their fate and behaviour in the environment, as well as on threats to ecological and human health, are still lacking. Moreover, the ecotoxicological significance of some emerging micropollutants remains largely unknown, because satisfactory data to determine their risk often do not exist. This paper discusses the fate, behaviour, (bio)monitoring, environmental and health risks associated with emerging chemical (pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, hormones, toxins, among others) and biological (bacteria, viruses) micropollutants in soils, sediments, groundwater, industrial and municipal wastewaters, aquaculture effluents, and freshwater and marine ecosystems, and highlights new horizons for their (bio)removal. Our study aims to demonstrate the imperative need to boost research and innovation for new and cost-effective treatment technologies, in line with the uptake, mode of action and consequences of each emerging contaminant. We also address the topic of innovative tools for the evaluation of the effects of toxicity on human health and for the prediction of microbial availability and degradation in the environment. Additionally, we consider the development of (bio)sensors to perform environmental monitoring in real-time mode. This needs to address multiple species, along with a more effective exploitation of specialised microbes or enzymes capable of degrading endocrine disruptors and other micropollutants. In practical terms, the outcomes of these activities will build up the knowledge base and develop solutions to fill the significant innovation gap faced worldwide.

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Expression of the IRT1 metal transporter is controlled by metals at the levels of transcript and protein accumulation.

Janette Fett, Mary Guerinot, James Connolly (2002)

Iron, an essential nutrient, is not readily available to plants because of its low solubility. In addition, iron is toxic in excess, catalyzing the formation of hydroxyl radicals that can damage cellular constituents. Consequently, plants must carefully regulate iron uptake so that iron homeostasis is maintained. The Arabidopsis IRT1 gene is the major transporter responsible for high-affinity iron uptake from the soil. Here, we show that the steady state level of IRT1 mRNA was induced within 24 h after transfer of plants to iron-deficient conditions, with protein levels peaking 72 h after transfer. IRT1 mRNA and protein were undetectable 12 h after plants were shifted back to iron-sufficient conditions. Overexpression of IRT1 did not confer dominant gain-of-function enhancement of metal uptake. Analysis of 35S-IRT1 transgenic plants revealed that although IRT1 mRNA was expressed constitutively in these plants, IRT1 protein was present only in the roots when iron is limiting. Under these conditions, plants that overexpressed IRT1 accumulated higher levels of cadmium and zinc than wild-type plants, indicating that IRT1 is responsible for the uptake of these metals and that IRT1 protein levels are indeed increased in these plants. Our results suggest that the expression of IRT1 is controlled by two distinct mechanisms that provide an effective means of regulating metal transport in response to changing environmental conditions.

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Phytoremediation of metals: using plants to remove pollutants from the environment.

Ilya Raskin, Robert Smith, David E Salt (1997)

Phytoremediation uses plants to remove pollutants from the environment. The use of metal-accumulating plants to clean soil and water contaminated with toxic metals is the most rapidly developing component of this environmentally friendly and cost-effective technology. The recent discovery that certain chelating agents greatly facilitate metal uptake by soil-grown plants can make this technology a commercial reality in the near future.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Alina Wiszniewska: +48 12 662 52 01 , a.wiszniewska@ogr.ur.krakow.pl

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Plant Biotechnol Rep

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Plant Biotechnol Rep

Title: Plant Biotechnology Reports

Publisher: Springer Singapore (Singapore )

ISSN (Print): 1863-5466

ISSN (Electronic): 1863-5474

Publication date (Electronic): 3 January 2018

Publication date PMC-release: 3 January 2018

Publication date (Print): 2018

Volume: 12

Issue: 1

Pages: 1-14

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2150 7124, GRID grid.410701.3, Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Biotechnology and Horticulture, , University of Agriculture in Krakow, ; Al. 29 Listopada 54, 31-425 Kraków, Poland

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 1955 7966, GRID grid.13276.31, Department of Botany, Faculty of Agriculture and Biology, , Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW), ; Nowoursynowska 159, Building 37, 02-776 Warsaw, Poland

Article

Publisher ID: 467

DOI: 10.1007/s11816-017-0467-2

PMC ID: 5829118

PubMed ID: 29503668

SO-VID: 1bed3c6c-e46b-45f3-9d3e-3af7afa2ee9c

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

History

Date received : 25 September 2017

Date accepted : 18 December 2017

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004569, Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego;

Award ID: DS 3500

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Biotechnology

Keywords: environmental pollution,genetic engineering,genoremediation,heavy metals,hyperaccumulation,transgenesis

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Biotechnology

Keywords: environmental pollution, genetic engineering, genoremediation, heavy metals, hyperaccumulation, transgenesis

Recent strategies of increasing metal tolerance and phytoremediation potential using genetic transformation of plants

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Abstract

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Genome Engineering using CRISPR

Most cited references 117

Emerging pollutants in the environment: present and future challenges in biomonitoring, ecological risks and bioremediation.

Expression of the IRT1 metal transporter is controlled by metals at the levels of transcript and protein accumulation.

Phytoremediation of metals: using plants to remove pollutants from the environment.

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