Advances in study on phytochelatin synthase in plants
Phytochelatin (PC), which is produced under catalyzation of phytochelatin synthase (PCS), plays a key role in phytoremediation as its ability of conjugating heavy metal ion in plants. Intensive research on phytochelatin synthase is of great significance to understand the mechanism of heavy metal res...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Zhejiang University Press
2018-09-01
|
| Series: | 浙江大学学报. 农业与生命科学版 |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.academax.com/doi/10.3785/j.issn.1008-9209.2017.11.091 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Phytochelatin (PC), which is produced under catalyzation of phytochelatin synthase (PCS), plays a key role in phytoremediation as its ability of conjugating heavy metal ion in plants. Intensive research on phytochelatin synthase is of great significance to understand the mechanism of heavy metal resistance in plants, as well as inspires on strategies for creating engineering plants to ameliorate soil contaminated by heavy metal. This review was based on five aspects including bifunctional enzyme property, gene expression and enzymology feature, species distribution and phylogeny, catalytic active center, and activating mode. PCS mainly catalyzes the process of phytochelatin synthesis, as well as acts as peptidase. The gene expression of PCS is constitutive, whereas it can be regulated by heavy metal ion like Cd<sup>2+</sup> in a few species, and PCS is activated by some metal ions in which Cd<sup>2+</sup> is the most effective. It is widely distributed and can be found in organism kingdom such as yeast and nematode besides plants where PCS family members have closer genetic relationship than in other species, which infer its roles in plant’s adaption to environment. The catalytic center of PCS is located at N-terminal, and the three amino acid residues corresponding to Cys70, His183 and Asp201 in cyanobacterium absolutely conserved in all species. The heavy metal activation of PCS is believed to be related to cysteine, including two hypotheses of direct contact activation of heavy metals and formation of indirect intermediates. At the last part of this review, further discussions and prospects are given on multiple functions, gene expression, activating mechanism of PCS, as well as application regarding to the genes, aiming to provide some insights and references for further study. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1008-9209 2097-5155 |