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Apr
21
2008
Pollution-gobbling weed gives up its genetic secret to success
Most plants don’t like heavy metals such as zinc or cadmium, but Arabidopsis halleri will happily put down roots in the most contaminated soils. Reporting in Nature this week, a team of scientists led by Max Planck Institute biologist Ute Krämer – now at the University of Heidelberg – has unraveled the genetic basis underlying the little weed’s hardiness. Extra copies of the HMA4 (HEAVY METAL ATPASE 4) gene – are responsible: splicing it into the much more famous A. thaliana confers the same pollution-tolerating ability. Toxins are stored in the plant’s leaf cells, raising the possibility of developing plants that, when harvested, could drain contaminated soil of its poisonous elements. Even weeds have their strengths. Source: Hanikenne M, Talke IN, Haydon MJ, Lanz C, Nolte A, Motte P, Kroymann J, Weigel D & Krämer U (2008) Evolution of metal hyperaccumulation required cis-regulatory changes and triplication of HMA4. Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature06877
Image © Vasiliy Koval
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