title: Vacuolar compartmentalization: a second-generation approach to engineering plants for phytoremediation.
abstract: Engineering plants with greater metal tolerance and accumulation properties is the key to developing phytoremediators. A recent study by Won-Yong Song et al. has shown that overexpressing the yeast vacuolar transporter YCF1 increases Pb and Cd tolerance and consequently increases the accumulation of these metals in shoots of transgenic Arabidopsis plants even though expression levels of YCF1 were relatively low. This technology can be used to engineer advanced phytoremediators, increasing their ability to pump heavy metals into a safe compartment while requiring only a small amount of transporters rather than a large amount of chelating peptide material.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yi Ping
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Tong
authors.forename: Ralf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kneer
authors.forename: Yong Guan
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D018528:ATP-Binding Cassette Transporters / Q000235:genetics; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000382:microbiology; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D014617:Vacuoles / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure*
chemical_list: D018528:ATP-Binding Cassette Transporters; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; C089179:YCF1 protein, S cerevisiae