Determination of content of metallothionein and low molecular mass stress peptides in transgenic tobacco plants

Abstract

Phytoremediation is a process that utilizes plants to remove, transfer, stabilize, or destroy pollutants in soil, sediment, and groundwater. Plants used for such purposes have several requirements. Genetic engineering these plants could be an effective tool used to acquire features needed for such purposes within a substantial amount of time. This paper aims to utilize electrochemical techniques to analyze transgenic tobacco and, thus, to reveal their heavy metals phytoremediation potential. Total thiol and metallothionein (MT) quantities were determined in the control and transgenic tobacco plants. The total content of thiols in transgenic plants varied within the range of 561 to 1,671 lg g -1 . Furthermore, the determination of MT was done on transgenic tobacco plants. The level of human MT in transgenic tobacco plants varied between 25 and 95 lg g -1 . However, a plant cell protects itself by synthesizing low molecular mass thiols such as reduced glutathione and phytochelatins to protect itself against heavy metals toxicity. The most important thiols, cysteine (Cys), glutathione (GSH), oxidised glutathione (GSSG) and phytochelatin 2 (PC2), were determined in the non-transgenic and transgenic tobacco plants by high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. Tobacco plants synthesizing the highest amount of metallothionein have the highest basal level of phytochelatin 2 as well as reduced glutathione and free cysteine. It clearly follows from the results obtained that the biosynthesis of particular thiols is mutually linked, which contributes to a better protection of a transgenic plant against heavy metals effects.

Heavy metal induced stress on wheat: phytotoxicity and microbiological management

“…As a result, MTs sequester various toxic heavy metals by means of thiolate bonds of cysteine groups, and thus make the metal ions unavailable to microbes. 283,284 The suggested roles of MTs include: (a) regulation of homeostasis of essential metal ions within cells, (b) chelation of toxic metal ions, and (c) protection of bacterial and plant cells against oxidative damage induced by metal stress. [285][286][287] The synthesis of MTs by soil microbiota under stressed environment has been reported.…”

Phytohormones as Important Biologically Active Molecules – Their Simple Simultaneous Detection

“…Because of the bio-friendliness to the environment of these remediation approaches and their aesthetic value they are well accepted by the public. Flax seems to be one of the potential of plants suitable for remediation of heavy metals from contaminated soil, but there is still a lack detailed information on the biological changes caused by heavy metals, aside from well investigated plant heavy-metal-protective processes through synthesis of peptides rich in cysteine moieties [ 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. In our experiments, we studied the effect of flax extracts on the phytohormones’ signals to use the results in subsequent biological experiments.…”

Nanotechnologies for society. New designs and applications of nanosensors and nanobiosensors in medicine and environmental analysis

“…This sensitive analysis can be carried out in the case of all peptides and proteins, which in their molecule contain cysteine. Among these molecules belongs also MTs [68,72,73,75,82,83,85], glutathione [174,[197][198][199][200][201], phytochelatins [199,200,[202][203][204] and others [205,206], which have been determined by using of stationary electrochemical instrument without autosampler.…”