Cadmium-Sensitive Mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana

A screening procedure for identifying Cd-sensitive mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana is described. With this procedure, two Cd-sensitive mutants were isolated. These represent independent mutations in the same locus, referred to as CAD1. Genetic analysis has shown that the sensitive phenotype is recessive to the wild type and segregates as a single Mendelian locus. Crosses of the mutant to marker strains showed that the mutation is closely linked to the tt3 locus on chromosome 5. In addition to Cd, the mutants are also significantly more sensitive to mercuric ions and only slightly more sensitive to Cu and Zn, while being no more sensitive than the wild type to Mn, thus indicating a degree of specificity in the mechanism affected by the mutation. Undifferentiated callus tissue is also Cd sensitive, suggesting that the mutant phenotype is expressed at the cellular level. Both wild-type and mutant plants showed increased sensitivity to Cd in the presence of buthionine sulfoximine, an inhibitor of the biosynthesis of the cadmium-binding (γ-glutamylcysteine)_n-glycine peptides, suggesting that the mutant is still able to synthesize these peptides. However, the effects of a cad1 mutation and buthionine sulfoximine together on cadmium sensitivity are essentially nonadditive, indicating that they may affect different aspects of the same detoxification mechanism. Assays of Cd uptake by intact plants indicate that the mutant is deficient in its ability to sequester Cd.