Strategies for the Engineered Phytoremediation of Mercury and Arsenic Pollution [electronic resource].

Published:: Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Science, 2003.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Physical Description:: vp : digital, PDF file
Additional Creators:: University of Georgia, United States. Department of Energy. Office of Science, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information

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Summary:

Phytoremediation is the use of plants to extract, transport, detoxify and/or sequester pollutants of the land, water or air. Mercury and arsenic are among the worst environmental pollutants, adversely affecting the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. We have demonstrated that plants can be engineered to take up and tolerate several times the levels of mercury and arsenic that would kill most plant species. Starting with methylmercury and/or ionic mercury contamination, mercury is detoxified, stored below or above ground, and even volatilized as part of the transpiration process and keeping it out of the food chain. Initial efforts with arsenate demonstrate that it can be taken up, transported aboveground, electrochemically reduced to arsenite in leaves and sequestered in thiol-rich peptide complexes. The transgenic mercury remediation strategies also worked in cultivated and wild plant species like canola, rice and cottonwood.

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E 1.99:826382

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Published through SciTech Connect.
03/26/2003.
225th American Chemical Society Meeting, New Orleans, LA (US), 03/23/2003--03/27/2003.
Meagher, Richard B.; Dhankher, Om Parkash.

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