Authors: A K Srivastava P Venkatachalam K G Raghothama S V Sahi
Publish Date: 2006/12/02
Volume: 225, Issue: 6, Pages: 1353-1365
Abstract
Heavy metal contamination of soils is of widespread occurrence as a result of human agricultural and industrial activities Among heavy metals lead is a potential pollutant that readily accumulates in soils and sediments Although lead is not an essential element for plants it gets easily absorbed and accumulated in Sesbania drummondii which exhibits a significant level of tolerance to lead The response of a metal tolerant plant to heavy metal stress involves a number of biochemical and physiological pathways To investigate the overall molecular response of a metaltolerant plant to lead exposure suppression subtractive hybridization SSH was used to construct a cDNA library enriched in lead induced mRNA transcripts from leadtolerant Sesbania Screening the library by reverse Northern analysis revealed that between 20 and 25 of clones selected from the library were differentially regulated in lead treated plants After differential screening we isolated several differentially expressed cDNA clones including a type 2 metallothionein MT gene which is involved in detoxification and homeostasis and shown to be differentially regulated in lead treated plants The data from the reverse Northern analysis was further confirmed with conventional Northern analysis of a select group of genes including MT ACC synthase/oxidase cold water stress and other abiotic stressinduced genes which are upregulated rapidly in response to lead treatment The mRNA levels of MT increased substantially after lead treatment indicating a potential role for it under lead stress in Sesbania The present results show that SSH can serve as an effective tool for isolating genes induced in response to lead heavy metal tolerance in Sesbania A better understanding of lead induced gene expression in Sesbania should help select candidates associated with remediation of heavy metal toxicity The possible link between this result and the heavymetal response of plants is discussed
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