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Title: Biotechnological generation of plants resistant to mine-site pollutants

Journal Article · · Plant Physiology, Supplement; (USA)
OSTI ID:7189143

The United States Department of Interior maintains a program designed to reclaim the land occupied by abandoned mine sites. These can be contaminated with pollutant levels of Zn{sup ++}. The quantities of this element required to adequately sustain plant growth and development are 0.065-0.250 ppm. However, various metal-tolerant plants (e.g., Agrostis tenuis) have been discovered making cleansing of abandoned mine site lands possible through seeding of the sites with clones of the tolerant plants. Here, we suggest that these sites be seeded with Agrostis tenuis, Rhode Island bentgrass, and that DNA fragments be excised from the genome of pollen of the survivors by restriction endonucleases followed by characterization of the fragments and their insertions into appropriate vectors (Ti plasmids). The vectors could be employed to transfer DNA fragments carrying the information for pollutant resistance to Agrostis pollen to possibly achieve super-resistance.

OSTI ID:
7189143
Journal Information:
Plant Physiology, Supplement; (USA), Vol. 89:4; ISSN 0079-2241
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English