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Our lab is interested in studying the importance of the transition metal homeostatic genes in metal accumulator/tolerant plants. Transition metals like zinc, iron, copper etc play extremely important role in proper growth and development of plants. The levels of these metals are under tight control and alterations in these levels often have deleterious effect on the plant. Studying metal homeostasis in metal tolerant plants especially in metal hyperaccumulators is emerging as a priority research area due to the potential use of these plants in soil remediation.
Heavy metal tolerant plants growing on the tailing ponds of the Uranium mine in Jaduguda India, as well as the metal tolerant plant Brassica juncea will be used for this purpose. We propose to take a bioinformatics based approach in the beginning to study the metal homeostatic genes from metal tolerant as well as non tolerant plants. The function of these genes will be then validated through cell biology, biochemistry and molecular biological techniques to determine the mechanism of the unique metal tolerance in these plants at a molecular level. |
