Subcellular distribution and chemical forms of cadmium in Morus alba L.

Morus alba L. (mulberry) is a perennial woody tree and a species with great potential for Cd phyremediation owing to its large biomass and extensive root system. The mechanisms involved in Cd detoxification were investigated by analyzing the subcellular distribution and chemical forms of Cd in mulberry in the present study. These results indicated that 53.27-70.17% of Cd mulberry accumulated was stored in the root and only about 10% were in the leaves. Lots of the Cd was located in the cell wall of the mulberry root and in soluble fraction of the mulberry leaf. Moreover, in roots, the largest amount of Cd was in the form of undissolved Cd-phosphate. While in mulberry leaves and stems, most of the Cd was extracted by 2% Acetic acid and 0.6 M HCl, representing Cd-phosphate and Cd-oxalate. It could be concluded that the Cd combination with peptides and organo-ligands in vacuole of leaf or complexed with proteins or cellulose in the cell wall of root might be contributed to the tolerance of mulberry to Cd stress. The mulberry could be used to remediate the Cd polluted farmland soils.

MACRO: a combined microchip-PCR and microarray system for high-throughput monitoring of genetically modified organisms.

The monitoring of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a primary step of GMO regulation. However, there is presently a lack of effective and high-throughput methodologies for specifically and sensitively monitoring most of the commercialized GMOs. Herein, we developed a multiplex amplification on a chip with readout on an oligo microarray (MACRO) system specifically for convenient GMO monitoring. This system is composed of a microchip for multiplex amplification and an oligo microarray for the readout of multiple amplicons, containing a total of 91 targets (18 universal elements, 20 exogenous genes, 45 events, and 8 endogenous reference genes) that covers 97.1% of all GM events that have been commercialized up to 2012. We demonstrate that the specificity of MACRO is ~100%, with a limit of detection (LOD) that is suitable for real-world applications. Moreover, the results obtained of simulated complex samples and blind samples with MACRO were 100% consistent with expectations and the results of independently performed real-time PCRs, respectively. Thus, we believe MACRO is the first system that can be applied for effectively monitoring the majority of the commercialized GMOs in a single test.