Superfund Research Program
Title: HAC1 mapping in Arabidopsis
Accession Number: GSE62299
Link to Dataset: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE62299
Repository: Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO)
Data Type(s): Gene Expression
Experiment Type(s): Genome variation profiling by genome tiling array
Organism(s): Arabidopsis thaliana
Summary: ABSTRACT: Inorganic arsenic is a carcinogen and its ingestion in foods such as rice presents a significant risk to human health. Plants chemically reduce arsenate to arsenite. Using genome-wide association (GWA) mapping of loci controlling natural variation in arsenic accumulation in Arabidopsis thaliana allowed us to identify the arsenate reductase required for this reduction, which we named High Arsenic Content1 (HAC1). Complementation verified the identity of HAC1, and expression in Escherichia coli lacking a functional arsenate reductase confirmed the arsenate reductase activity of HAC1. The HAC1 protein accumulates in the epidermis, the outer cell layer of the root, and also in the pericycle cells surrounding the central vascular tissue. Plants lacking HAC1 lose their ability to efflux arsenite from roots, leading to both increased transport of arsenic into the central vascular tissue and on into the shoot. HAC1 therefore functions to reduce arsenate to arsenite in the outer cell layer of the root, facilitating efflux of arsenic as arsenite back into the soil to limit its accumulation in the root and transport to the shoot. Arsenate reduction by HAC1 in the pericycle may play a role in limiting arsenic loading into the xylem. Loss of HAC1 encoded arsenic reduction leads to a significant increase in arsenic accumulation in shoots causing an increased sensitivity to arsenate toxicity. We also confirmed the previous observation that the ACR2 arsenate reductase in A. thaliana plays no detectable role in arsenic metabolism. Further, ACR2 does not interact epistatically with HAC1, since arsenic metabolism in the acr2 hac1 double mutant is disrupted in an identical manner to that described for the hac1 single mutant. Our identification of HAC1 and its associated natural variation provides an important new resource for the development of low arsenic containing food stuffs such as rice.
Publication(s) associated with this dataset:- Chao D, Chen Y, Chen J, Shi S, Chen Z, Wang C, Danku JM, Zhao F, Salt DE. 2014. Genome-wide association mapping identifies a new arsenate reductase enzyme critical for limiting arsenic accumulation in plants. PLoS Biol 12(12):e1002009. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002009 PMID:25464340 PMCID:PMC4251824
- Dartmouth College: Arsenic Uptake, Transport and Storage in Plants