Phytoremediation of ionic and methyl mercury pollution. 1997 annual progress report

'The long-term goal of this research is to manipulate single-gene traits into plants, enabling them to process heavy metals and remediate heavy-metal pollution by resistance, sequestration, removal, and management of these contaminants (Meagher and Rugh, 1996; Meagher et al., 1997). The working hypothesis behind this proposal was that transgenic plants expressing both the bacterial organo mercury lyase (merB) and the mercuric ion reductase gene (merA) will (A) remove the mercury from polluted sites and (B) prevent methyl mercury from entering the food chain. The authors have had a very successful first year either testing aspects of this hypothesis directly or preparing material needed for future experiments. The results are outlined below under goals A and B, which are explicit in this hypothesis. There were less than 10% of the funds remaining in any category as projected in the first 12 month budget at the end of the first year, with the exception of the equipment category which had 25% of the funds remaining ({approximately} $8,000). Much of this remaining equipment money is being spent this week on a mercury vapor analyzer. It might be useful to remember that at the time this grant was awarded, the authors had successfully engineered a small model plant, Arabidopsis thalianat to use a highly modified bacterial mercuric ion reductase gene, merA9, to detoxify ionic mercury (Hg(II)), reducing it to Hg(0) (Rugh et al., 1996). Seeds from these plants germinate, grow, and set seed at normal growth rates on levels of Hg(II) that are lethal to normal plants. In assays on transgenic seedlings suspended in a solution of Hg(II), 10 ng of Hg(0) was evolved per min per mg wet weight of plant tissue. However, at that time, they had no information on expression of merA in any other plant species, nor had they expressed merB in any plant.