Improvement of uptake of endocrine disruptors by plants

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Bisphenol A (BPA) is a potential endocrine disrupter, used as a stabilizer for many types of plastics. It has recently been a cause for anxiety because of the environmental release of BPA. It has been demonstrated that BPA is metabolized to BPA-o-β-D-glucopyranoside (BPAG) in the tobacco seedlings (Plant Cell Physiol. 2002, 43: 1036-1042). This reaction may be catalyzed by BPA specific glucosyltransferase (BGT). In this study, we try to isolated cDNAs for BGT form tobacco suspension cultured cells (Nicotiana tabacum cv. BY-2) by using RT-PCR. Nucleotide sequences of isolated cDNAs were identical to NtGT1a, NtIS10a and NTSAGT, respectively. Ectopic expression of cDNAs in E. coli exhibited BGT activity in the cell-free extracts, indicating that NtGT1 a, NtIS10a and NTSAGT encode BGT. Northern hybridization analysis indicated that their mRNAs were constitutively high level in the leaves of tobacco seedlings (Nicotiana tabacum cv. Xanthi NC).NtGT1a under the control of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter, was introduced into A. thaliana col-0 to generate transgenic plants. BGT activity of the transgenic plants were increased by 6-fold, suggesting that over expression of an cDNA for BGT may improve the metabolic ability to detoxify BPA.