1. Analysis of BnMTL, a novel metallothionein‐like protein in the bast fiber crop Ramie (Boehmeria nivea)
- Author
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Jikang Chen, Chunming Yu, Chen Kunmei, Gao Gang, Aminu Shehu Abubakar, Ping Chen, and Zhu Aiguo
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,medicine.disease_cause ,Plant Roots ,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology ,Boehmeria ,Ramie ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ,medicine ,Metallothionein ,Cd2+ tolerance ,Escherichia coli ,Gene ,lcsh:QH301-705.5 ,Research Articles ,chemistry.chemical_classification ,Molecular mass ,biology ,Chemistry ,Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction ,heterologous expression ,biology.organism_classification ,Amino acid ,030104 developmental biology ,Biochemistry ,lcsh:Biology (General) ,BnMTL ,ramie ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,expression pattern ,Heterologous expression ,Research Article ,Cadmium - Abstract
Ramie (Boehmeria nivea) is a perennial herb that is highly tolerant of heavy metals. In the present study, we cloned a novel metallothionein-like gene from ramie; this gene, termed BnMTL, encodes a putative 46 amino acid protein with a molecular mass of 4.38 kDa. Analysis using quantitative RT-PCR revealed that cadmium (Cd2+ ) treatment results in elevated expression of BnMTL in the roots. We heterologously overexpressed BnMTL in Escherichia coli cells to examine its binding to Cd2+ and its possible role in homeostasis. Recombinant E. coli cells expressing BnMTL exhibited a high tolerance of Cd2+ stress up to a concentration of 1 mm, and the observed accumulation of Cd2+ was almost eight-fold higher than the control. These results demonstrate that BnMTL (i) is highly expressed in the root following exposure to Cd2+ and (ii) encodes a typical metallothionein-like protein with high cadmium-binding activity.
- Published
- 2019