Phytoremediation of arsenic from the contaminated soil using transgenic tobacco plants expressing ACR2 gene of Arabidopsis thaliana

We have cloned, characterized and transformed the AtACR2 gene (arsenic reductase 2) of Arabidopsis thaliana into the genome of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum, var Sumsun). Our results revealed that the transgenic tobacco plants are more tolerant to arsenic than the wild type ones. These plants can grow on culture medium containing 200 mu M arsenate, whereas the wild type can barely survive under this condition. Furthermore, when exposed to 100 mu M arsenate for 35 days the amount of arsenic accumulated in the shoots of transgenic plants was significantly lower (28 mu g/g d wt.) than that found in the shoots of non-transgenic controls (40 mu g/g d wt.). However, the arsenic content in the roots of transgenic plants was significantly higher (2400 mu g/g d. wt.) than that (2100 mu g/g d. wt.) observed in roots of wild type plants. We have demonstrated that Arabidopsis thaliana AtACR2 gene is a potential candidate for genetic engineering of plants to develop new crop cultivars that can be grown on arsenic contaminated fields to reduce arsenic content of the soil and can become a source of food containing no arsenic or exhibiting substantially reduced amount of this metalloid.