Characterization of a New Family of Metal Transport Proteins
Soils at many DOE sites are contaminated with metals and radionuclides. Such soils obviously pose a risk to human and animal health. Unlike organic wastes, which can be metabolized, metals are immutable and cannot be degraded into harmless constituents. Phytoremediation, the use of plants to remove toxic materials from soil and water, may prove to be an environmentally friendly and cost effective solution for cleaning up metal contaminated sites. The success of phytoremediation will rely on the availability of plants that absorb, translocate, and tolerate the contaminating metals. However, before we can engineer such plants, we need more basic information on how plants acquire metals. An important long term goal of our research program is to understand how metals such as zinc, cadmium and iron are transported across membranes. Our research is focused on a new family of metal transporters, which we have identified through combined studies in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We have identified a family of 24 presumptive metal transport genes in a variety of organisms including yeast, trypanosomes, plants, nematodes, and humans. This family, which we have designated the ''ZIP'' genes, provides a rich source of material with which to undertake studies on metal transport in eukar
- Research Organization:
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; University of Missouri at Columbia, Columbia, Missouri (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG07-97ER20292
- OSTI ID:
- 829905
- Report Number(s):
- EMSP-60271-1999; R&D Project: EMSP 60271; TRN: US200429%%74
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1 Jun 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Characterization of a new family of metal transporters
Characterization of a New Family of Metal Transporters