본문
Most plant
species, including crops, cannot tolerate the toxic effects of soil pollutants,
which dramatically impair their growth and development. In a study now published
in Scientific Reports*, a research team led by Paula Duque from the Instituto
Gulbenkian de Ciencia (IGC; Portugal) discovered that two genes from baker's
yeast can increase plant resistance to a broad range of toxic substances,
enabling their growth in contaminated soils.
Heavy
metals and organic pollutants released into the environment by the industry, as
well as the misuse of herbicides and pesticides commonly used in agriculture,
negatively affect the quality of soils. Some plant species are able to remove
soil contaminants and grow normally, but these are a small minority. "Current
strategies to decontaminate soils are very expensive and not so effective. The
scientific community has been looking for alternative strategies to make plants
more resilient to toxic compounds. A possible solution may lie in Saccharomyces
cerevisiae, a species of yeast used for baking, brewing, and winemaking," says
Paula Duque.
In fact, it
was known that S. cerevisiae can resist herbicides and other chemicals. Isabel
Sa-Correia's team at Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa
(Portugal), who collaborated in this study, had identified two yeast genes
playing a role in this mechanism. The Duque research group analysed the ability
of those genes to confer multidrug resistance on Arabidopsis thaliana, a small
flowering plant used as a model organism to understand biological processes
common to other plants. After inserting either of the two yeast genes into this
plant, the researchers found that it became more resistant to herbicides,
fungicides and heavy metals. Plants carrying the yeast genes grew significantly
better than wild-type plants in contaminated soils.
Paula Duque
explains: "These two yeast genes produce proteins that are able to expel
molecules from cells. So we hypothesized that they could play a similar role in
plants, eliminating toxic molecules and allowing normal growth." The IGC
researcher adds: "To extrapolate these results to crops, we will need further
experiments in Arabidopsis to understand the mechanisms underlying plant
resistance as well as studies in other plant species. But our results, obtained
with genes of the yeast species that makes bread or beer, hold much promise to
help solve a difficult environmental problem."
Story
Source:
Materials
provided by Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.
Journal
Reference:
Estelle
Remy, María Niño-González, Cláudia P. Godinho, Tânia R. Cabrito, Miguel C.
Teixeira, Isabel Sá-Correia, Paula Duque. Heterologous expression of the yeast
Tpo1p or Pdr5p membrane transporters in Arabidopsis confers plant xenobiotic
tolerance. Scientific Reports, 2017; 7 (1) DOI:
10.1038/s41598-017-04534-7