| Abstract Detail
Tobacco - Morning Bovet, Lucien [1], Lugon-Moulin, Nicolas [2], Gadani, Ferruccio [2], Donini, Paolo [2]. Genetic modification of tobacco for reduction of leaf cadmium content. CADMIUM is a potentially toxic heavy metal. Its presence in soils can be of geogenic (rocks) or anthropogenic (industry, mining) origin. Plants are able to take up Cd depending on its bioavailability in the soil. A small number of plants exhibiting low biomass have the capacity to sequester high amounts of Cd within the leaves leading to Cd hyperaccumulation. Elucidating the molecular mechanism(s) of Cd hyperaccumulation in plants like Thlaspi caerulescens or Arabidopsis halleri could lead to the development of engineered plants with a high biomass (e.g. sunflower, tobacco, poplar) which could be used for phytoremediation of industrially contaminated soils. In agricultural soils, plant Cd bioavailability has to be maintained at a low level to avoid Cd contamination of crops, vegetables and fruits. Therefore, reducing Cd accumulation in leaves of agronomical important plants is a challenge for the future. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) can accumulate Cd within the leaves which could result to human exposure to this metal. In this particular case, the use of transgenic tobacco plants might be a reasonable alternative to reduce shoot Cd concentration. For this purpose we propose to enhance root Cd sequestration based on the property of membrane pumps to transport Cd or Cd-complexes into the vacuolar compartments, thus mimicking Cd detoxification pathways in yeast. The key element in such a strategy is the selection of genes to engineer tobacco plants. Such genes might be derived from hyperaccumulators like T. caerulescens or A. halleri or other Cd tolerant organisms. We have selected several candidates to be expressed or silenced in tobacco.
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1 - University of Fribourg, Plant Biology, rue Albert Gockel 3, Fribourg, 1700, Switzerland
2 - Philip Morris International R&D, Philip Morris Products SA, Neuchatel, 2000, Switzerland
Keywords:
Nicotiana tabacum
cadmium
heavy metal.
Session: Poster-55
Location: Ballroom CD/Monona Terrace
Date: Tuesday, July 25th, 2006
Time: 8:00 AM
Abstract ID:33 |
