metal-hyperaccumulation
Metal hyperaccumulation is the ability of certain plants to absorb and concentrate heavy metals such as zinc, cadmium, or nickel in their tissues at levels far exceeding those found in most other species. This phenomenon is of significant interest in plant science because it reveals specialized physiological and molecular mechanisms for metal transport, chelation, and detoxification. Understanding these mechanisms has broad implications for phytoremediation—using plants to clean contaminated soils—as well as for research into plant stress tolerance and nutrient homeostasis.
PubMed · 2026-04-06
Scientists identified three proteins in a nickel-hyperaccumulating plant that work together to pull toxic nickel from soil and store it safely in leaves. When these proteins were engineered into a common lab plant, it accumulated nearly twice as much nickel without showing signs of toxicity.
OcFPN1, a root-based transporter, increased nickel movement from roots to shoots by 5.0- to 7.1-fold in engineered Arabidopsis compared to wild-type plants.
OcFPN2;1, a shoot-based vacuolar transporter, increased shoot nickel accumulation by 51.1–97.5% on its own, but did not reduce nickel toxicity when expressed alone.
Co-expressing both OcFPN1 and OcFPN2;1 roughly doubled shoot nickel concentration and alleviated toxicity symptoms — plants showed less yellowing and grew longer roots under nickel stress.
