Nature Biotechnology
17, 491 - 494 (1999)
doi:10.1038/8673
Biodegradation of explosives by transgenic plants expressing pentaerythritol
tetranitrate reductaseChristopher E. French1, 3, Susan J. Rosser1, Gareth J. Davies1, Stephen Nicklin2
& Neil C. Bruce11
Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge
, Tennis Court Rd., Cambridge CB2 1QT
, UK. 2
Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, Fort Halstead
, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN14 7BP, UK. 3
Present address: Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology,
University of Edinburgh, Darwin Building, King's Buildings,
Mayfield Rd., Edinburgh EH9 3JR Scotland
.
Correspondence should be addressed to Neil C. Bruce n.bruce@biotech.cam.ac.ukphytoremediationexplosivestransgenic plantsPETN reductasePlants offer many advantages over bacteria as agents for bioremediation;
however, they typically lack the degradative capabilities of specially selected
bacterial strains. Transgenic plants expressing microbial degradative enzymes
could combine the advantages of both systems. To investigate this possibility
in the context of bioremediation of explosive residues, we generated transgenic
tobacco plants expressing pentaerythritol tetranitrate reductase, an enzyme
derived from an explosive-degrading bacterium that enables degradation of
nitrate ester and nitroaromatic explosives. Seeds from transgenic plants were
able to germinate and grow in the presence of 1 mM glycerol trinitrate (GTN)
or 0.05 mM trinitrotoluene, at concentrations that inhibited germination and
growth of wild-type seeds. Transgenic seedlings grown in liquid medium with
1 mM GTN showed more rapid and complete denitration of GTN than wild-type
seedlings. This example suggests that transgenic plants expressing microbial
degradative genes may provide a generally applicable strategy for bioremediation
of organic pollutants in soil.
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