Bacterial heavy metal transporter MerC increases mercury accumulation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

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This study evaluated the feasibility of transgenic Arabidopsis engineered to express the bacterial heavy metal transporter MerC for the phytoremediation of mercury pollution. MerC, MerC-SYP121, or MerC-AtVAM3 proteins were found to be expressed in leaf segments of transgenic plants using an anti-MerC antibody immunostaining method. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing merC, merC-SYP121, and merC-AtVAM3 were more resistant to mercury and accumulated significantly more of this metal compared with wild-type Arabidopsis. These results demonstrated that the expression of the bacterial heavy metal transporter MerC can promote the transport and accumulation of mercury in transgenic Arabidopsis, which represents a method of improving plants for the phytoremediation of mercury pollution.