Isolation of arsenic-accumulating mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana

Soil contamination by chemicals has become a serious worid-wide problem. The use of arsenic as a tickicide during the first half of this century has left hundreds of areas surrounding old cattle tick dip sites in Australia with heavily arsenic-contaminated soil. At present, no economical and effective technology is available to remediate these sites. The use of specially selected and genetically engineered arsenic-accumulating plants may provide a cheap and effective way of removing arsenic from the soil. The generation of new plants with the ability to accumulate high amounts of arsenic requires fundamental knowledge about the molecular mechanism of arsenic uptake and storage. Arabidopsis thaliana has been used as a model plant for this study.