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| Home > Publications database > Metal metabolism in plants - from the whole-plant to the molecular level with a focus on biochemistry and biophysics |
| Conference Presentation (Plenary/Keynote) | PUBDB-2016-06708 |
2016
Abstract: Many heavy metals are essential micronutrients, and vastly different (with natural and anthropogenic causes) trace metal concentrations occur in various habitats, ranging from deficient to toxic levels. Therefore, one focus of plant research is on the response to trace metals in terms of uptake, transport, sequestration, speciation, deficiency, toxicity and detoxification. Early studies often used environmentally not relevant conditions, including too high metal concentrations and unrealistic light regimes. Further, individual processes often were not mechanistically interconnected, so that causes and consequences of metal effects remained unclear. In this talk, recent insights will be highlighted, mostly in the (sub-)nanomolar range of metal concentrations, with a simulation of natural light- and temperature cycles and trying to interconnect individual effects. The submerged water plant Ceratophyllum demersum turned out to be a useful shoot model, in which it could be shown that metal(loid) (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni) concentrations that were previously considered as not having any effect actually have a strong impact on the plants, and with a different sequence of events than observed at very high concentrations. We used a combination of various biophysical and biochemical methods for measurements in vivo (e.g. photosynthesis biophysics, formation of reactive oxygen species, metal transport), in situ (e.g. quantitative (sub)cellular distribution and speciation of metals, mRNA levels) as well as on isolated proteins (for identification and characterization of metalloproteins). For example, using metalloproteomics via HPLC-ICPMS of protein extracts from plants that had been treated with heavy metals, changes in target sites of metal binding to proteins from deficient to toxic concentrations could be analyzed. Analysis of pigments, of metal(loid) sequestration and speciation showed clearly metal(loid)-induced changes already at very low concentrations. This was reflected also by specific alterations of photosynthesis biophysics. As a result, starch metabolism as well as production of reactive oxygen species were influenced.
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