FIŠER Jan, MACKOVÁ Martina, NOVÁKOVÁ Martina, MACEK Tomáš
(Vysoká škola chemicko-technologická v Praze a Ústav organické chemie a biochemie AV ČR)
Genetické modifikace rostlin pro zvýšení akumulace těžkých kovů Genetical modifications of plants to increase accumulation of heavy metals
Phytoremediation is method which uses plants for absorption, accumulation and degradation of pollutants in the environment.
Heavy metals present in soil or water are not degraded in comparison to organic contaminants. This is the reason, why the high
efficiency of absorption and accumulation of heavy metals is required in shoots of these plants. There are plants naturally
accumulating metals in high concentration on heavy metals contaminated soil in the nature called hyperaccumulators. Mostly
these plants are small, create small amount of biomass and therefore they are not exploitable for phytoremediation. However
the recognition of their mechanisms of heavy metal detoxification allows the preparation of transgenic plants, which growth
quickly, accumulate heavy metals in shoots and simultaneously create enough of biomass. The sulphur-rich compounds participate
in detoxification of heavy metals in plants. Overexpression of these compounds leads to the fact that heavy metals in plants
are binded and transported to vacuole. The uptake of heavy metals can be enhanced by expression of membrane transporters.
Many plants with the ability to accumulate heavy metals were prepared by these approaches. These plants could be the alternative
to usual physico-chemical methods, which are very expensive.
Key words: transgenic plants, heavy metals, metalothioneins, phytochelatins, glutathione.