基因工程改良植物重金属抗性与富集能力的研究进展

基于分子水平上对植物吸收、解毒、忍耐以及超富集重金属的几个关键步骤的认识，以及一些功能基因相继在细菌、酵母、植物和动物中被分离、鉴定，近年来，人们利用转基因技术提高植物重金属抗性和富集能力方面已获得进展, 一些功能基因（如gsh1, MerA和ArsC)及其工程植物已显示出植物修复产业化潜力。特别对转基因技术所采取的分子生物学途径、达到的效果以及存在的问题进行了详述，对今后研究的重点和策略进行了探讨。

Advances in the Research of Genetic Engineering of Heavy Metal Resistance and Accumulation in Plants

Using plants to remove or inactivate heavy metal pollutants from soils and surface waters provide a cheap and sustainable approach of Phytoremediation. However, field trials suggested that the efficiency of contaminant removal usi ng natural hyperaccumulators is insufficient, due to that many of these species are slow growing and produce little shoot biomass. These factors severely const rain their potential for large-scale decontamination of polluted soils. Moreov er, both the micronutrient and toxic metal content accumulated in crops determin e the quality and safety of our food-chain. By a transgenic approach, the intr od uction of novel genes responsible for hyperaccumulating phenotype into high biom ass plants and/or stable crops uptaking minerals as food is a promising strategy for the development of effective techniques of phytoremediation and improvement of nutritional value of stable food through a viable commercialization. Recentl y, the progress at molecular level for heavy metal uptaking, detoxification and hyperaccumulation in plants, and also the clarification of some functional genes in bacteria, yeasts, plants and animals, have advanced the research on genetic engineering plants of heavy metal resistance and accumulation, and on the functi onal genes (e.g. gsh1, MerA and ArsC) and their genetic transformated plants. T hese studies demonstrated commercialization potentials of phytoremediation. In this paper, the molecular approach, effects and problems in gene transformation were discussed in details, and also the strategy and emphases were probed into t he future research.