Plants that Hyperaccumulate Heavy Metals

Abstract

Heavy metal hyperaccumulators are plants that can tolerate and accumulate extremely high concentrations of metals in their shoots. This reflects the enhancement of physiological processes such as metal uptake, mobilization, translocation, and detoxification by chelation and vacuolar sequestration. Hyperaccumulation occurs in approximately 500 taxa of angiosperms and is particularly common among the Brassicaceae. Several candidate genes have been proposed as determinants of heavy metal hyperaccumulation. They predominantly encode transporters involved in metal translocation and storage, and also chelators and genes involved in stress responses.