title: Detection and quantification of unbound phytochelatin 2 in plant extracts of Brassica napus grown with different levels of mercury.
abstract: The mercury (Hg) accumulation mechanism was studied in rape (Brassica napus) plants grown under a Hg concentration gradient (0 microm-1,000 microm). Hg mainly accumulated in roots. Therefore, the presence of phytochelatins (PCs) was studied in the roots of the plants. The high stability of the PC-Hg multicomplexes (mPC-nHg) seems to be the main reason for the lack of previous Hg-PC characterization studies. We propose a modification of the method to detect and quantify unbound PC of Hg in plant extracts via high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray tandem mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry in parallel. We separated the PC from the Hg by adding the chelating agent sodium 2,3-dimercaptopropanesulfonate monohydrate. We only detected the presence of PC after the addition of the chelating agent. Some multicomplexes mPC-nHg could be formed but, due to their large sizes, could not be detected. In this study, only PC(2) was observed in plant samples. Hg accumulation was correlated with PC(2) concentration (r(2) = 0.98).
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Vegetal, Facultat de Biologia , University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Santiago
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Iglesia-Turiño
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Febrero
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Jauregui
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caldelas
authors.forename: Jose Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Araus
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bort
mesh_terms: D029688:Brassica napus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005978:Glutathione / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism*; D008628:Mercury / Q000494:pharmacology*; D054811:Phytochelatins; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000737:chemistry*; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D010936:Plant Extracts; D054811:Phytochelatins; D008628:Mercury; D005978:Glutathione